African American Families

Maggie Comer was a poor, uneducated mother of five who believed that the only way her children were going to make something of themselves in the world was through education. Fighting obstacles such as racism, oppression, poverty, hardship, and World War II, Maggie made certain her childrenhad the opportunity to live the American Dream she never could.

"Have to keep that smile", said Booker Wright in the 1966 NBC documentary Mississippi: A Self-Portrait. At the time Wright was a waiter in a Whites-only restaurant and a local business owner who would become an unwitting icon of the civil rights movement. For he did the unthinkable: Before a national audience, he described what life was truly like for the Black people of Greenwood, Mississippi.

I Am Nobody’s Slave tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. This book examines how trauma from enslavement and Jim Crow shaped their outlook on thriving in America, influenced each generation, and how they succeeded despite these challenges.

These are the firsthand accounts of sisters Helen and Barbara Shores about growing up with their father, Arthur Shores, a prominent Civil Rights attorney, during the 60s in the Jim Crow south Birmingham district - a frequent target of the Ku Klux Klan. Between 1948 and 1963, some 50 unsolved Klan bombings happened in Smithfield where the Shores family lived, earning their neighborhood the nickname “Dynamite Hill.” Due to his work, Shores’ daughter, Barbara, barely survived a kidnapping attempt.

Long before she was one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals was a warrior. Frustrated by the laws that kept African Americans separate but very much unequal to whites, she had questions: Why couldn't she drink from a whites-only fountain? Why couldn't she feel safe beyond home - or even within the walls of church? Adults all told her: Hold your tongue. Be patient. Know your place. But Beals had the heart of a fighter - and the knowledge that her true place was a free one.

Fourteen years after the end of slavery, Lord Henry Hardin and his wife, Lady Bertha, enjoy an entitled life in Union County, Arkansas. Until he faces a devastating reality: Bertha is unable to bear children. If Henry doesn't produce an heir, the American branch of his family name will die out. So Henry, desperate to preserve his aristocratic family lineage, does the unthinkable.

From the time Brooke Green was seven years old, she has lived with the pain of losing her mother. Her father has done the best job he could in raising her, but a piece of her always felt empty. On the day of her father's funeral, her grandmother breaks the shocking news: Her mother, Sarah, is very much alive. She abandoned her family because she claimed she wasn't fit for motherhood. After doing some research, Brooke discovers her mother is living in Atlanta, enjoying a great career...and a brand-new family.

In this novel of family and redemption, a mother struggles to save her eighteen-year-old daughter from the devastating consequences of mental illness by forcing her to deal with her bipolar disorder. New York Times best-selling author Bebe Moore Campbell draws on her own powerful emotions and African-American roots, showcasing her best writing yet.

It has been a year since Jillian Novak ended their affair - a year that left Dr. Aidan Westmoreland determined to win back his lover. He knows they shouldn't have to keep their relationship a secret, and he'll follow her around the world to prove it. Fourteen days on a cruise ship - just Aidan, Jillian, and the deep blue sea - and a passion that won't be denied.

Brady Bledsoe and his mother, Carmyn, have a strong relationship. A single mother, faithful churchgoer, and the owner of several successful Atlanta beauty salons, Carmyn has devoted herself to her son and his dream of becoming a professional football player. Brady has always followed her lead, including becoming a member of the church's "Celibacy Circle".

In the early 1900s an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea, just as the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule. Orphaned by the sunk vessel are two sisters and their half-brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic.

Carole and Jeffery Boston Weatherford’s ancestors are among the founders of Maryland. Their family history there extends more than three hundred years, but as with the genealogical searches of many African Americans with roots in slavery, their family tree can only be traced back five generations before going dark. And so from scraps of history, Carole and Jeffery have conjured the voices of their kin, creating an often painful but ultimately empowering story of who their people were in a breathtaking book that is at once deeply personal yet all too universal.

Walking Gentry Home tells the story of Alora Young’s ancestors, from the unnamed women forgotten by the historical record but brought to life through Young’s imagination; to Amy, the first of Young’s foremothers to arrive in Tennessee, buried in an unmarked grave, unlike the white man who enslaved her and fathered her child; through Young’s great-grandmother Gentry, unhappily married at fourteen; to her own mother, the teenage beauty queen rejected by her white neighbors.

Sally Harrison and her family are slaves on a plantation in Georgia. But when Master decides to sell Sally and her brother, the family escapes to seek shelter with a tribe of Seminoles who are rumored to adopt runaway slaves. After a perilous journey, Sally’s family finds and joins the tribe. But while her father and brother easily adjust to Indian ways, Sally can’t seem to find her place.

Cris Burks won widespread acclaim for her engaging first novel, SilkyDreamGirl. Burks' second offering follows the life of a determined girl struggling toward adulthood in 1950s Chicago. The devastating discovery that "Daddy" is not her real father opens a great chasm in Neecey's world and leads to Neecey's abusive mother bringing a succession of no-good men into the home. Nevertheless, as she grows into a woman, the resilient Neecey strives to overcome despair and forge a new life for herself.

Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an unraveling America. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class. Unmoored by the grief of a recent devastating miscarriage and Noah's fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world.

Faithful and humble wife Kokei Keyu seemed to enjoy a near-perfect marriage until her husband, Dodeye, accepted a chieftaincy title from home. Kokei’s life is about to change forever. In a compelling and spellbinding drama, age-long secrets burst into a once-peaceful home, causing more damage than all anticipated, revealing the past and showing that what we sow is really what we are going to reap.

As a publicist for professional athletes, Antonio Vega is used to solving problems and spinning stories to the benefit of his clients. Yet, he can't seem to convince his wife that he has been and always will be faithful, and her lack of trust tests the limits of his patience.

Hearing the news that his mother is leaving their family home without explanation, the life of young Marcellous Thompson begins to unravel. As Marcellous progresses from adolescence into young adulthood, for each traumatic event he overcomes another is awaiting perilously around the corner. Betrayal, heartbreak, depression, and love are a handful of emotions Marcellous must master in order to grow into the man he has always envisioned within himself. Does he has the perseverance and fortitude to survive, or will he succumb to the pressures of his life?

One question must be answered before Afia can slip into a peaceful sleep: What does love look like? With the companionship of her loving papa, Afia journeys to find love and learns that it is the warmth of the sun’s hugs, the brook’s soothing song, and other mesmerizing gifts of nature. But Afia’s quest also teaches her that she may not have to go too far to see the emotion at the heart of the world’s wonders.