African American Biography

At age four, Phyllis Biffle Elmore was plucked off her front porch in Detroit and dropped on her grandmother Lula Horn's doorstep in rural Alabama. Phyllis felt utterly abandoned until Grandma Lula showed her both all-encompassing love and her intricate "Quilts of Souls." Phyllis listened intently as Lula told epic stories of folks who had passed on as she turned their clothing into breathtaking quilts for their families.

Growing up in the Bronx, Joél Leon was taught that being soft, being vulnerable, could end your life. Shaped by a singular view of Black masculinity espoused by the media, by family and friends, and by society, he learned instead to care about the gold around his neck and the number of bills in his wallet. He absorbed the “facts” that white was always right and Black men were seen as threatening or great for comic relief but never worthy of the opening credits. It wasn’t until years later that Joél understood he didn’t have to be defined by these things.

Ida B. Wells is an American icon of truth telling. Born to slaves, she was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She cofounded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement. This engaging memoir relates Wells’ private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. This seemingly small act triggered civil rights protests across America and earned Rosa Parks the title "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement".

In Betty Reid Soskin’s 96 years of living, she has been a witness to a grand sweep of American history. When she was born in 1921, the lynching of African-Americans was a national epidemic, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular American form of entertainment, white women had only just won the right to vote, and most African-Americans in the Deep South could not vote at all. From her great-grandmother, who had been enslaved until her mid-20s, Betty heard stories of slavery and the times of terror and struggle for Black folk that followed.

Darrin Bell was six years old when his mother told him he couldn’t have a realistic water gun. She said she feared for his safety, that police tend to think of little Black boys as older and less innocent than they really are. In this immersive audiobook adaptation—with wall-to-wall sound design, an expansive music soundtrack, and full-cast narration including the author and his son—Bell uses his sharp humor to examine how The Talk shaped intimate and public moments from childhood to adulthood.

At Canaan's Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. Pulitzer Prize-winner and best-selling author Taylor Branch makes clear in this magisterial account of the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr., earned a place next to James Madison and Abraham Lincoln in the pantheon of American history.

From burning crosses set on the Robinsons’s lawn to a Pennsylvania small town on fire with praise and parades when the athletes return from Berlin, Olympic Pride, American Prejudice is full of emotion, grit, political upheaval, and the American dream. Capturing a powerful and untold chapter of history, the narrative is also a celebration of the courage, commitment, and accomplishments of these talented athletes and their impact on race, sports and inclusion around the world.

Officer Clemmons: A Memoir details the incredible life story of François Clemmons, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers which changed the whole course of both men's lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly forty years.

The inspiring autobiography of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who helped launch Apollo 11. Katherine Johnson’s story was made famous in the best-selling book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures. Now, in Reaching for the Moon, she tells her own story for the first time, in a lively autobiography that will inspire young listeners everywhere.

This biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. brings his life and the profound nature of his message to young children through his own words. Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the most influential and gifted speakers of all time. Doreen Rappaport uses quotes from some of his most beloved speeches to tell the story of his life and his work in a simple, direct way.

Nate Shaw's father was born into slavery. Nate was born into a bondage that was only a little gentler. At the age of nine, he was picking cotton and plowing behind a mule. At the age of 47, he faced down a crowd of White deputies who had come to confiscate a neighbor's livestock. His defiance cost him 12 years in prison.This triumphant autobiography, All God's Dangers, assembled from the 84-year-old Shaw's oral reminiscences, is the plainspoken story of an "over average" man who witnessed momentous changes in the lives of Southern people, Black and White....

The life story of Coretta Scott King - wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and singular 20th-century American civil rights activist - as told fully for the first time, toward the end of her life, to one of her closest friends. Born in 1927 to daringly enterprising Black parents in the Deep South, Coretta Scott had always felt called to a special purpose.

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.

On June 17, 2015, 12 members of the historically black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina welcomed a young white man to their evening Bible study. He arrived with a pistol, 88 bullets, and hopes of starting a race war. Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine innocents during their closing prayer horrified the nation. In Grace Will Lead Us Home, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes provides a definitive account of the tragedy’s aftermath.

From a leading journalist and activist comes a brave, beautifully wrought memoir. When Darnell Moore was 14, three boys from his neighborhood tried to set him on fire. He escaped, but just barely. It wasn't the last time he would face death. Three decades later, Moore is an award-winning writer, a leading Black Lives Matter activist, and an advocate for justice and liberation. In No Ashes in the Fire, he shares the journey taken by that scared, bullied teenager who not only survived, but found his calling.

Featuring 18 trailblazing Black women in American history, Little Leaders educates and inspires as it relates true stories of breaking boundaries and achieving beyond expectations. Among these biographies, listeners will find heroes, role models, and everyday women who did extraordinary things - bold women whose actions and beliefs contributed to making the world better for generations of girls and women to come.

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., won the world heavyweight championship at the age of 22, the same year he joined the Nation of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He would go on to become the first and only three-time (in succession) world heavyweight champion. Nicknamed "The Greatest", Ali was as well known for his unique boxing style, consisting of the Ali Shuffle and the rope-a-dope, as he was for the catchphrase "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee".

Red Tails, George Lucas’s celebration of America’s first Black flying squadron, the Tuskegee Airmen, should have been a moment of victory for Doug Melville. He expected to see his great-uncle Benjamin O. Davis Jr.—the squadron’s commander—immortalized on-screen for his selfless contributions to America. But as the film rolled, Doug was shocked when he realized that Ben Jr.’s name had been omitted and replaced by the fictional Colonel A. J. Bullard. And Ben’s father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr., America’s first Black general who helped integrate the military, was left out too.

How did Oprah Winfrey do to become the world's most well-known female personality as well as a successful entrepreneur? It turns out it was not just all luck. Her mantra, "Turn Your Wounds Into Wisdom," served her well from an early age, especially after tragically losing her first child and later when she worked to turn her life dreams into reality.