Contemporary Black Biography
King: a Biography by
Acclaimed by leading historians and critics when it appeared shortly after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., this foundational biography wends through the corridors in which King held court, posing the right questions and providing a keen measure of the man whose career and mission enthrall scholars and general readers to this day. Updated with a new preface and more than a dozen photographs of King and his contemporaries, this edition presents the unforgettable story of King's life and death for a new generation.
Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by
Compiled from his own words, this autobiography of Martin Luther King shows how the mild-mannered, inquisitive child and student rebelled against segregation and was fired by a vision of equality for people everywhere.
Contents
Early years -- Morehouse College -- Crozer Seminary -- Boston University -- Coretta -- Dexter Avenue Baptist Church -- Montgomery movement begins -- The violence of desperate men -- Desegregation at last -- The expanding struggle -- Birth of a new nation -- Brush with death -- Pilgrimage to nonviolence -- The sit-in movement -- Atlanta arrest and presidential politics -- The Albany movement -- The Birmingham campaign -- Letter from Birmingham Jail -- Freedom now! -- March on Washington -- Death of illusions -- St. Augustine -- The Mississippi challenge -- The Nobel Peace Prize -- Malcolm X -- Selma -- Watts -- Chicago campaign -- Black power -- Beyond Vietnam -- The poor people's campaign -- Unfulfilled dreams.
Misremembering Dr. King: Revisiting the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. by 
The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy On Viewing My Life From the Last Decade of It's First Century by 
W. E. B. du Bois : The fight for equality and the American century, 1919-1963 by
The second volume of the Pulitzer Prize--winning biography that "The Washington Post" hailed as "an engrossing masterpiece" Charismatic, singularly determined, and controversial, W.E.B. Du Bois was a historian, novelist, editor, sociologist, founder of the NAACP, advocate of women's rights, and the premier architect of the Civil Rights movement. His hypnotic voice thunders out of David Levering Lewis's monumental biography like a locomotive under full steam. This second volume of what is already a classic work begins with the triumphal return from WWI of African American veterans to the shattering reality of racism and lynching even as America discovers the New Negro of literature and art. In stunning detail, Lewis chronicles the little-known political agenda behind the Harlem Renaissance and Du Bois's relentless fight for equality and justice, including his steadfast refusal to allow whites to interpret the aspirations of black America. Seared by the rejection of terrified liberals and the black bourgeoisie during the Communist witch-hunts, Du Bois ended his days in uncompromising exile in newly independent Ghana. In re-creating the turbulent times in which he lived and fought, Lewis restores the inspiring and famed Du Bois to his central place in American history.
African American Lives 2 [video]
Genealogical investigations and DNA analysis help participants discover where they come from and who they are.
African American lives [video] by
A compelling combination of storytelling and science, this series uses genealogy, oral histories, family stories and DNA to trace roots of several accomplished African Americans down through American history and back to Africa.
Black Boy (American Hunger): A record of childhood and youth by
With an introduction by Jerry W. Ward, Jr. Black Boy is a classic of American autobiography, a subtly crafted narrative of Richard Wright' s journey from innocence to experience in the Jim Crow South. An enduring story of one young man' s coming off age during a particular time and place, Black Boy remains a seminal text in our history about what it means to be a man, black, and Southern in America. Superb...The Library of America has insured that most of Wright' s major texts are now available as he wanted them to be tread...Most important of all is the opportunity we now have to hear a great American writer speak with his own voice about matters that still resonate at the center of our lives.
Black Foremothers: Three lives by
Three heroic women whose stories, in the words of Margaret Walker, "every woman, man, and child should know": Ellen Craft, the daring runaway Georgia slave who used her freedom to serve the cause of abolition; Ida B. Wells, the firebrand journalist whose crusade against lynching awakened the consciousness of a nation; and Mary Church Terrell, a gifted and untiring leader in the movement for suffrage, civil rights, and world peace. Through painstaking research, Sterling not only produces a fascinating account of three outstanding leaders; she also documents the role hitherto "faceless, nameless millions of African American women" have played in shaping our culture and history.
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X by
Les Payne, the renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, embarked in 1990 on a nearly thirty-year-long quest to create an unprecedented portrait of Malcolm X, one that would separate fact from fiction. The result is this historic, National Book Award-winning biography, which interweaves previously unknown details of Malcolm X's life--from harrowing Depression-era vignettes to a moment-by-moment retelling of the 1965 assassination--into an extraordinary account that contextualizes Malcolm X's life against the wider currents of American history. Bookended by essays from Tamara Payne, Payne's daughter and primary researcher, who heroically completed the biography after her father's death in 2018, The Dead Are Arising affirms the centrality of Malcolm X to the African American freedom struggle.
Dreams from My Father : A story of race and inheritance by
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * ONE OF ESSENCE'S 50 MOST IMPACTFUL BLACK BOOKS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama "guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race" (The Washington Post Book World). "Quite extraordinary."--Toni Morrison In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father--a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man--has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey--first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father's life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. Praise for Dreams from My Father "Beautifully crafted . . . moving and candid . . . This book belongs on the shelf beside works like James McBride's The Color of Water and Gregory Howard Williams's Life on the Color Line as a tale of living astride America's racial categories."--Scott Turow "Provocative . . . Persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither."--The New York Times Book Review "Obama's writing is incisive yet forgiving. This is a book worth savoring."--Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here "One of the most powerful books of self-discovery I've ever read, all the more so for its illuminating insights into the problems not only of race, class, and color, but of culture and ethnicity. It is also beautifully written, skillfully layered, and paced like a good novel."--Charlayne Hunter-Gault, author of In My Place "Dreams from My Father is an exquisite, sensitive study of this wonderful young author's journey into adulthood, his search for community and his place in it, his quest for an understanding of his roots, and his discovery of the poetry of human life. Perceptive and wise, this book will tell you something about yourself whether you are black or white."--Marian Wright Edelman
How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir by
From award-winning poet Saeed Jones, a coming-of-age memoir about a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears.
Men We Reaped: A Memoir by
Named one of the Best Books of the Century by New York Magazine. Two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones, Sing, Unburied, Sing) contends with the deaths of five young men dear to her, and the risk of being a black man in the rural South. In five years, Jesmyn Ward lost five young men in her life--to drugs, accidents, suicide, and the bad luck that can follow people who live in poverty, particularly black men. Dealing with these losses, one after another, made Jesmyn ask the question: Why? And as she began to write about the experience of living through all the dying, she realized the truth--and it took her breath away. Her brother and her friends all died because of who they were and where they were from, because they lived with a history of racism and economic struggle that fostered drug addiction and the dissolution of family and relationships.
No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by
In his memoir, Darnell Moore recounts his experience growing up a queer black man in Camden, New Jersey in the 1980s.
Paul Robeson: A biography by
The remarkable life of Paul Robeson, quintessential Harlem Renaissance man: scholar, all-American, actor, activist, and firebrand Born the son of an ex-slave in New Jersey in 1898, Paul Robeson, endowed with multiple gifts, seemed destined for fame. In his youth, he was as tenacious in the classroom as he was on the football field. After graduating from Rutgers with high honors, he went on to earn a law degree at Columbia. Soon after, he began a stage and film career that made him one of the country's most celebrated figures. But it was not to last. Robeson became increasingly vocal about defending black civil rights and criticizing Western imperialism, and his radical views ran counter to the country's evermore conservative posture. During the McCarthy period, Robeson's passport was lifted, he was denounced as a traitor, and his career was destroyed. Yet he refused to bow. His powerful and tragic story is emblematic of the major themes of twentieth-century history. Martin Duberman's exhaustive biography is the result of years of research and interviews, and paints a portrait worthy of its incredible subject and his improbable story. Duberman uses primary documents to take us deep into Robeson's life, giving Robeson the due that he so richly deserves.
Run. Book one by
Eisner Award-Winner for Best Graphic Memoir. "In sharing my story, it is my hope that a new generation will be inspired by Run to actively participate in the democratic process and help build a more perfect Union here in America." -Congressman John Lewis
Silent Gesture: Autobiography of Tommie Smith by
At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and his teammate John Carlos came in first and third, respectively, in the 200-meter dash. As they received their medals, each man raised a black-gloved fist, creating an image that will always stand as an iconic representation of the complicated conflations of race, politics, and sports. In this, his autobiography, Smith fills out the story around that moment--how it came to be and where it led him.
Soldier: a poet's childhood by 
Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by
From critically acclaimed journalist Valerie Boyd comes an eloquent profile of one of the most intriguing cultural figures of the twentieth century--Zora Neale Hurston. A woman of enormous talent and remarkable drive, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books, many short stories, and several articles and plays over a career that spanned more than thirty years. Today, nearly every black woman writer of significance--including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker--acknowledges Hurston as a literary foremother, and her 1937 masterpiece Their Eyes Were Watching God has become a crucial part of the modern literary canon. Boyd delves into Hurston's history--her youth in the country's first incorporated all-black town, her friendships with luminaries such as Langston Hughes, her sexuality and short-lived marriages, and her mysterious relationship with vodou.
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