African American Biography

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Lord Bird, winner of the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction, Deacon King Kong, and Five-Carat Soul, Kill ’Em and Leave is more than a book about James Brown. Brown embodied the contradictions of American life: He was an unsettling symbol of the tensions between North and South, Black and White, rich and poor. After receiving a tip that promises to uncover the man behind the myth, James McBride goes in search of the “real” James Brown.

Seen around the world, John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s Black Power salute on the 1968 Olympic podium sparked controversy and career fallout. Yet their show of defiance remains one of the most iconic images of Olympic history and the Black Power movement. Here is the remarkable story of one of the men behind the salute, lifelong activist, John Carlos.

Shaquille O'Neal discovered his love of basketball while spending time in an afterschool program called the Boys & Girls Club of America. Standing over six feet tall by the time he turned 11 years old, Shaq—as he is affectionately known—continued to practice the game and stunned the country with his phenomenal skills. From leading his high-school team to its first-ever state title to becoming the first pick in the 1992 NBA draft and going on to win four NBA championships, Shaq proved that he could dominate almost any player.

Henry Brown came to be known as Box; he "entered the world a slave". He was put to work as a child and passed down from one generation to the next - as property. When he was an adult, his wife and children were sold away from him out of spite. Henry Brown watched as his family left bound in chains, headed to the deeper South. What more could be taken from him? But then hope - and help - came in the form of the Underground Railroad. Escape!

As a kid, Jackie Robinson loved sports. And why not? He was a natural at football, basketball, and, of course, baseball. But beyond athletic skill, it was his strength of character that secured his place in sports history. In 1947 Jackie joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking the long-time color barrier in major league baseball. It was tough being first - not only did "fans" send hate mail but some of his own teammates refused to accept him.

As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity—our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. In this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler’s story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life.

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens.

After following her mother to the US at a young age to pursue economic opportunities, one woman must come to terms with the ways in which systematic racism and resultant trauma keep the American Dream inaccessible to Black people. In the early '90s, young Tiffanie Drayton and her siblings left Trinidad and Tobago to join their mother in New Jersey, where she'd been making her way as a domestic worker, eager to give her children a shot at the American Dream. At first, life in the US was idyllic.

Renowned American astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi (born James Plummer) pens a gripping, gritty coming-of-age memoir, from young boy to graduate-school student, that will resonate with teenagers, especially those of color, who are facing many choices and obstacles as they navigate their young adult lives.

Mississippi John Hurt provides this legendary creator's life story for the first time. Biographer Philip Ratcliffe traces Hurt's roots to the moment his mother Mary Jane McCain and his father Isom Hurt were freed from slavery. Ratcliffe details Hurt's musical influences and the origins of his style and repertoire. The author also relates numerous stories from the time of his success, drawing on published sources and many hours of interviews with people who knew Hurt well.

In On the Shoulders of Giants, indomitable basketball star and best-selling author and historian Kareem Abdul-Jabbar invites listeners on an extraordinarily personal journey back to his birthplace. He leads us through one of the greatest political, cultural, literary, and artistic movements in our history, revealing the tremendous impact the Harlem Renaissance had on both American culture and his own life.

In her debut book, Everybody Come Alive, Marcie Alvis Walker invites listeners into a deeply intimate and illuminating memoir comprising lyrical essays and remembrances of being a curious child of the seventies and eighties, raised under the critical and watchful eye of Jim Crow matriarchs who struggled to integrate their lives and remain whole. This is a coming-of-age journey touching on the bittersweet pain and joy of what it takes to become a person who embraces being Black, a woman, and holy in America.

In the wake of the Tour de France’s fallen heroes, the story of one of history’s most legendary cyclists provides a much-needed antidote. In 1907 the world’s most popular athlete was not Cy Young or Ty Cobb. Rather, he was a black bicycle racer named "Major” Taylor. In his day, Taylor became a spiritual and athletic idol. He was the fastest man in America and a champion who prevailed over unspeakable cruelty. The men who aided him were among the most colorful to emerge from the era.

Stokely Carmichael, the charismatic and controversial Black activist, stepped onto the pages of history when he called for "Black Power" during a speech one humid Mississippi night in 1966. Carmichael’s life changed that day, and so did America’s struggle for civil rights. "Black Power" became the slogan of an era, provoking a national reckoning on race and democracy. In Stokely, preeminent civil rights scholar Peniel E. Joseph presents a groundbreaking biography of Carmichael.

How does a white kid from the New York suburbs, harmonica in hand, end up earning himself a busker's spot on the Harlem sidewalks next to Mr. Satan, a Mississippi-born legend? How did an interracial blues duo fare on the streets of New York during a turbulent, fractious time marked by racially-motivated murders in Howard Beach, Bensonhurst, and Crown Heights?

MaVynee loved going to the beach. But in the days of Jim Crow, she couldn't just go to any beach - most of the beaches in Jacksonville were for Whites only. Knowing something must be done, her grandfather bought a beach that African American families could enjoy without being reminded they were second-class citizens; he called it American Beach. Artists like Zora Neale Hurston and Ray Charles vacationed on its sunny shores. It's here that MaVynee was first inspired to sing, propelling her to later become a widely acclaimed opera singer who routinely performed on an international stage.

This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great - the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. This audiobook focuses on Harriet Tubman's brave heroism as part of the movement to abolish slavery. As one of the key players in the Underground Railroad, she helped enslaved African Americans escape and find freedom.

Brilliant scientist and witty conversationalist, best-selling author and architect of the great surveys that mapped the West after the Civil War, Clarence King was named by John Hay "the best and brightest of his generation". But King hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family in Newport: for 13 years he lived a double life - as the celebrated White explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a Black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.

On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and Black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.

Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was separated from his mother during infancy, then taken from his grandparents at the age of six to serve at the “Great House” on the Wye Plantation in Maryland. He never imagined the cruelties he would witness or the indignities of his family being treated like cattle to be sold, divided, and scattered far and wide. Escaping from slavery, Frederick Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in America.