African American Biography

“Phenomenal.... A memoir that opens into the world, with brilliance, courage, and elegant prose.... This is a book to read, read again, and remember.”—Imani Perry, New York Times bestselling author of the National Book Award winner South to America Poet and journalist Shayla Lawson...

Dr. Jordan B. Smith, Jr. became the first African-American to become the Color Company Commander at the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis or USNA) in 1976. The Class of 1976 African Americans set the pathway for changes, by demonstrating that Blacks and other minorities had earned the right to be in Annapolis. The incidents and events are authentic. This audiobook is about one of the Black men who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1976.

In Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100 Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Robert L. Wilkins tells the story of how his curiosity about why there wasn't a national museum dedicated to African American history and culture became an obsession - eventually leading him to quit his job as an attorney when his wife was seven months pregnant with their second child, and make it his mission to help the museum become a reality.

The “riveting”* true story of the fiery summer of 1970, which would forever transform the town of Oxford, North Carolina—a classic portrait of the fight for civil rights in the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird *Chicago Tribune On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old...

The life and 1984 murder of a beloved Black grandmother that changed community activism forever—and sparked the ongoing movement against racist policing and brutality #SayHerName: The story of Eleanor Bumpurs, told for the first time by decorated historian and Bumpurs's former neighbor LaShawn...

Designer, activist, and educator Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller is legendary for her decades of scholarship and advocacy, and as a touchstone and conscience for the design profession. In HERE: Where the Black Designers Are, Holmes-Miller documents the history of—and answers to—the question she has been asking for decades: “Where are the Black designers?” Holmes-Miller explores this essential question through the lens of her own development as a designer and leader, beginning with her own family and its rich multiethnic history.

Read by the author. Foreword read by Heni Zoutomou. How long will you wait to live your dreams? Maybe you're just starting out and are unsure where to invest your time and energy. Maybe you've started and stopped so much already that your fallback plan has become the only plan. Maybe you've...

The uplifting story of a young Black scientist’s challenging journey to flourish outside the traditional confines of academia, inspired by her innate connection to nature’s most misunderstood animal—the shark. "Jasmin Graham has that winning combination of talent and grit needed to excel...

Winner of the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and the 2025 GLCA New Writers Award By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race. Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity...

In her “witty and searing” first essay collection, award-winning poet Morgan Parker examines “the cultural legacy of Black womanhood and the meaning of finding ‘well-being’ in a world that wasn’t built for you” (Vogue). “Riveting and deeply personal . . . filled with poignant...

A searing debut YA poetry and essay collection about a Black cancer patient who faces medical racism after being diagnosed with leukemia in their early twenties, for fans of Audre Lorde's The Cancer Journals and Laurie Halse Anderson's Shout. When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with...

Here are a baker's dozen of Paul Laurence Dunbar's poems brought to life in the medium he always wrote for - the spoken word. As narrated by Bobby Norfolk, these poems evoke the range of moods, from elegy to wonder to celebration, that the poet is remembered for.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was only 25 when he helped organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was soon organizing black people across the country in support of the right to vote, desegregation, and other basic civil rights. Maintaining nonviolent and peaceful tactics even when his life was...

Journalist, attorney, and star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York reshapes the cultural landscape of achievement by showing why Black unity is crucial to individual and collective success. When The Real Housewives of New York City hired its first black cast member after more than 13...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.”—The New...

Discover an astonishing true story of resilience and triumph that will inspire you. Taken from his mother at age three, Steve Klakowicz lives a terrifying existence. Caught in the clutches of a cruel foster family and subjected to constant abuse, Steve finds his only refuge in a box of books...

Jazz could not contain Fred Hersch. Hersch’s prodigious talent as a sideman—a pianist who played with the giants of the twentieth century in the autumn of their careers, including Art Farmer and Joe Henderson—blossomed further in the eighties and beyond into a compositional genius that...

This is the story of Condoleezza Rice that has never been told, not that of an ultra-accomplished world leader, but of a little girl--and a young woman--trying to find her place in a sometimes hostile world, of two exceptional parents, and an extended family and community that made all the...

Farah Jasmine Griffin’s beloved father died when she was nine, bequeathing her an unparalleled inheritance in closets full of remarkable books and other records of Black genius. In Read Until You Understand - a line from a note he wrote to her - she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that framed the US Constitution and that inspired Malcolm X’s fervent speeches, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the artistry of Romare Bearden, and many others.

While many film fans may not be familiar with Bill Duke's name, they most certainly recognize his face. Dating back to the 1970s, Duke has appeared in a number of popular films, including Car Wash, American Gigolo, Commando, Predator, and X-Men: The Last Stand. Fewer still might be aware of Duke's extraordinary accomplishments off-screen as a talented director, producer, entrepreneur, and humanitarian. Bill Duke is the memoir of a Hollywood original.