African American English

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.

When G Double D, the founder of the gangsta rap label Explicit Content, seduces her singing partner, Leila "Fatal Beauty" Aponte, into splitting up their act to pursue solo stardom, Cassie Rivers is driven to find her own path to success, but her competitive nature could lead to danger when she uncovers dark secrets about G and his Explicit Content company.

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.

There can be only one: one man with two loyal friends and secrets from the past that will ultimately shake up the entire hood in Chicago; one man on a mission to destroy anyone who doesn't abide by his rules, including tricky bitches who drop to their knees behind closed doors yet stand tall against him when the time comes to collect the almighty dollar; one man with enough swagger in his walk and confidence in his talk and the skills and mindset to build an empire.

Gujaareh, the city of dreams, suffers under the imperial rule of the Kisuati Protectorate. A city where the only law was peace now knows violence and oppression. And nightmares. A mysterious and deadly plague haunts the citizens of Gujaareh, dooming the infected to die screaming in their sleep. Trapped between dark dreams and cruel overlords, the people yearn to rise up - but Gujaareh has known peace for too long. Someone must show them the way. Hope lies with two outcasts.

In The Black Shoals Tiffany Lethabo King uses the shoal - an offshore geologic formation that is neither land nor sea - as metaphor, mode of critique, and methodology to theorize the encounter between Black studies and Native studies. King conceptualizes the shoal as a space where Black and Native literary traditions, politics, theory, critique, and art meet in productive, shifting, and contentious ways.

An approachable guide to being an informed, compassionate, and socially conscious person today - from discussions of race, gender, and sexual orientation to disability, class, and beyond - from critically acclaimed historian, educator, and author Blair Imani.

They say all is fair in love and war, but how do you fight when you don't know the enemy is the one you love? Will the Hoover gang be able to reign supreme, or will they fall at the hands of the women who are supposed to have their backs? The infamous Hoover gang - Babyface, Blaze, Quick, and Shadow - have taken Chicago by storm. These four are not your average street thugs. Bank robbers by day and club owners by night, they have held on to their place at the top by never trusting anyone enough to allow them in their circle. The moment they do, all hell breaks loose.

Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. Deeply traumatized by a shooting incident, Cass Raines resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency. She also plays chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby.

Lamont "Hood" Mason is a fearless 19-year-old gangsta who was born and raised in the projects of Brooklyn, New York. He was an abandoned child who roamed the city streets and fought hard for survival. The only thing constant in his young life was the safety of a Brownsville barbershop owned by a father figure called Fat Daddy. The barbershop is where Hood comes of age, but cutting hair isn't the only thing Fat Daddy has going on.

Gabi isn't looking for love. At all. She's much more interested in starting a new life, in a new city, away from the overbearing demands of her parents. Terrence...is even less into the idea of a relationship than Gabi. He's in a good place in his career, focused on receiving a coveted promotion. Follow along with Gabi and Terrence as they navigate the stages of a relationship that was never meant to go further than a single night. Will they be able to overcome the challenges of family and career to build something that could last?

New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe’s God Don’t Like Ugly hit audiences like a thunderbolt, appealing to multiple generations of readers. God Don’t Make No Mistakes concludes the saga begun in that groundbreaking novel. Here, Annette Goode Davis is attempting to reconcile with her estranged husband. However, her appetite for food - and other men - has her world spiraling dangerously out of control.

This memoir written by writer, orator, and former slave Frederick Douglass describes, in gripping detail, the circumstances of his upbringing, his brutal treatment at the hands of slave-owners, and his narrow escape from Maryland to freedom. Written in 1845, this narrative is one of the most famous works of American literature and provided fuel for the abolitionist movement that began in the early 19th century.

Remy Morgan, a young girl born and raised in the heart of the ghetto, gets caught up in the life when she meets a drug lord who offers her the world. Young and naive, she is trapped in a game of lies, deception, and greed and learns the hard way that everything that glitters ain't gold. After her love is slain, Remy is forced back into the life that she desperately tried to forget. Remy has kept a diary of her life for the past two years. What she writes inside is a tale of love, passion, money, and secrecy - and ultimately a witness to her tragic end.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the "N" word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions listeners don't dare ask and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.

Black Americans have long been shackled to the Democrats. Seeing no viable alternative, they have watched liberal politicians take the Black vote for granted without pledging anything in return. In Blackout, Owens argues that this automatic allegiance is both illogical and unearned. She contends that the Democrat Party has a long history of racism and exposes the ideals that hinder the Black community’s ability to rise above poverty, live independent and successful lives, and be an active part of the American dream.

New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe continues the adventures of lifelong friends Annette Goode Davis and Rhoda O'Toole in this riveting novel.

Sensing her husband drifting away, Annette gets a full makeover to recapture his attention. But instead, she catches the eye of another man. Soon Annette is in a full-blown affair - and even Rhoda may not be able to fix things this time.

Jay-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson’s decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long.

This volume will revise the way we look at the modern populations of Latin America and North America by providing a totally new view of the history of Native-American and African-American peoples throughout the hemisphere. Africans and Native Americans explores key issues relating to the evolution of racial terminology and European colonialists' perceptions of color, analyzing the development of color classification systems and the specific evolution of key terms such as black, mulatto, and mestizo, which no longer carry their original meanings.