African American English

It is impossible to imagine New Orleans, and by extension American history, without the vibrant and singular Creole culture. In the face of an oppressive white society, members of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle built a community and held it together through the era of slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow terrorism. Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood follows Ludger Boguille, his family, and friends through landmark events that shaped New Orleans and the United States.

Tormented as a child for being dark-skinned and the son of a womanizer, Ken Ferguson longed for that feeling of being loved. He promised himself that he wouldn't be a manipulating, deceitful man like his father, but after he is cheated on and dumped by the girl he thought he would one day marry, he begins his transformation. Fueled by anger and tired of being the "nice guy", Ken drowns himself in one-night stands, threesomes, and affairs with married women. He meets his match with Ashley. But Ashley turns out to do even more damage, wounding him deeply. Ken spirals out of control.

African American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by writers of African descent. It begins with the works of such late 18th-century writers as Phillis Wheatley. Before the high point of enslaved people narratives, African-American literature was dominated by autobiographical spiritual narratives. The genre known as slave narratives in the 19th century were accounts by people who had generally escaped from slavery, about their journeys to freedom and ways they claimed their lives.

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.

Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge - a tradition that continues today within some black populations.

Hey you guys, it’s Leslie. I’m excited to share my story with you. Now, I’m gonna be honest: Some of the details might be vague because a b*tch is fifty-five and she’s smoked a ton of weed. But while bits might be a touch hazy, I can promise you the underlying truth is REAL.

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Amerie Cross and Arnold Hightower.

Angel, Jaz, Tasha, and Kyra are four girlfriends pulling themselves out of the ghetto - and trying to bring their hearts up to higher ground with them. Now Angel has started her own law practice and new life with Kaylin. But when an unwanted guest crashes their wedding, all the rage and bloodlust from the hood comes bustin' out - and Angel's gonna need every prayer in heaven to make it to the altar alive....

From the nationally best-selling author of Married Men comes this hilarious story of four black men searching for true love. Kevin's got the looks; Antoine's got the heart and soul; Tyrone's got the skills; and Maurice has all the player moves - but what they don't have are good women in their lives. What do they do? Call 1-900-BLACK-LUV, of course! The riotous experiences that follow have to be heard to be believed.

In a hood loaded with sex, brutality, and crime, three friends are at a turning point. They can surrender to the streets - and the murderous men who rule there - or walk a totally different path. But nothing is simple for women addicted to life on the edge. And everything has consequences.... Angel, Jaz, and Kyra are all leading double lives, torn between working hard to leave the ghetto behind and being dragged back in by the lying, pimping, drug-dealing men they can't seem to let go.

Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.

Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app. Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she’s in over her head. And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?

Even as feminism has become increasingly central to our ideas about institutions, relationships, and everyday life, the term used to diagnose the problem - patriarchy - is used so loosely that it has lost its meaning. In Vexy Thing Imani Perry resurrects patriarchy as a target of critique, re-centering it to contemporary discussions of feminism through a social and literary analysis of cultural artifacts from the Enlightenment to the present.

In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them.

It's 1876 and Dr. Viveca Lancaster is frustrated by the limits placed upon female physicians of color. When she is offered the chance to set up a practice in the small all-black community of Grayson Grove, Michigan, she leaves her California home and heads east. The very determined Viveca knows all about fighting for her rights. But she may need more than determination to face down the distractingly handsome Nate Grayson, the Grove's bull-headed mayor.

Naughty is as naughty always does, and Jaylin Jerome Rogers never disappoints. The aftermath to the Naughty Series picks up nearly three years later, and the tables have clearly turned. Brenda Hampton delivers another pause-resister full of the dramatic antics of bad-boy Jaylin and the women who can't resist him.

Belle Palmer is finally free! Separated from her father on the harrowing escape, Belle is lost and alone until she finds shelter with the Bests, the first free family she's ever known. For the first time in her 16 years, Belle can speak her mind - except for her feelings for a certain dark-eyed young man - The Beau. Educated and handsome, at 18, Daniel Best is engaged to the prettiest girl around. So when the bedraggled girl his parents take under their wing suddenly turns into a vibrant, lovely young woman, his attraction to her is a complete - and complicated - surprise.

When World War I began, it seemed unlikely that a unit such as the Harlem Hellfighters would ever be formed. Given their nickname by their German foes who admired their bravery, the Harlem Hellfighters were members of the 369th, an all-Black regiment. The 369th played key roles in critical battles and helped secure an Allied victory.

To discover the true role of Black women in the creation of American, and especially Southern, cuisine, Toni Tipton-Martin has spent years amassing one of the world’s largest private collections of cookbooks published by African-American authors, looking for evidence of their impact on American food, families, and communities and for ways we might use that knowledge to inspire community wellness of every kind. The Jemima Code presents more than 150 Black cookbooks that range from a rare 1827 house servant’s manual to modern classics.

In the game of love and war, it's so easy to get sidetracked when you're the most sought after guy in your city, but for Chase Warren, he wants more. Bedding chicks is light work for him, but finding a forever queen proves to be a little more challenging. That is, until he lays eyes on Selah. She has everything he's looking for and more, but one mistake could cost him everything.