African Culture

In Black Psychedelic Revolution, Dr. Nick Powers charts how psychedelics can heal historical, intergenerational, and racialized trauma. He shows how these medicines unlock a return to one’s self, facilitating an embodied experience of safety, peace, and beingness otherwise disrupted by whiteness—and explores psychedelics’ ability to transform individual wellness even as they transcend it. Drugs taken with therapy can heal. But drugs taken with a social movement can heal a nation.

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.

Afrocentric Style has descriptive The top memes, movements, and milestone moments dominating today’s social media have focused on Beyoncé, Black Panther, Black Lives Matter, Lil Nas, Kanye, Serena and Meghan Markle. Driven by Black millennials, these trending topics demonstrate the influence and power of Black artistry and celebrity in American popular culture and around the globe. As Shirley Neal argues, this is more than just a fleeting style. It is a profound display of how pop culture is being used as a conduit for the revival of Black identity, culture, and history.

Ona Judge wanted more than the best job an enslaved person could have, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman challenged why some people are masters and others enslaved, Ida B. Wells exposed post-slavery brutality, Martin Luther King Jr. was the key voice to overturn Jim Crow, and Barack Obama changed modern-day racial attitudes. For author Ray Anthony Shepard A Long Time Coming is highly personal, a chronicle of the times of his grandparents, parents, and himself.

This is a story of a little girl who is motivated by her dreams to enter a dancing competition in her village. African dance uses improvisation and the entire body. Some dancers learn their moves from former dancers, who became famous by participating in dance during various rituals, celebrations, or festivities.

This Caldecott Medal winner from prolific children’s book author and illustrator Gail E. Haley is steeped in colorful African and Caribbean language and folklore. It is the legendary tale of Kwaku Ananse - the spider man - and how he bargained with Nyame the Sky God to give his treasure of stories to the world.

Saesha is being raised as a Hindu girl in a patriarchal society during apartheid in the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa. She has no idea that apartheid even exists. Where do black South Africans live at night? Why does her dad take them through a separate entrance when they enter theme parks and picnic spots? These are just split second wonders that enter her mind when faced with it in the present. 

South Africa revels in its reputation as a sport-loving country. Yet just beneath the surface lurks a dark underbelly that reeks of cheating and illicit shenanigans, where shady characters and willing athletes are prepared to do whatever it takes to come out on top. South African sport is awash with steroids, a habit that formed in the late 1980s and continues unabated today, with participants and champions alike opting to play dirty.

What is in Africa? There’s the safari where wildlife is seen. There are the tribes that have resisted technology for so many years. But did you know that Africa is also a hub of developments? It’s a continent where the past meets the present. Learn and explore Africa by listening to this book for 9-12-year-olds. Grab a copy now!

Los africanos tienen una larga historia, aunque no todo se ha conservado por escrito. Y muchas historias folklóricas se han transmitido de generación en generación. Las tribus africanas varían tanto como los colores del arcoíris. Es por estas razones, y también por entretenimiento, que se ha elaborado este libro. Incluye varios cuentos mitológicos que se refieren a dioses, criaturas y entidades africanas. Algunos de estos tienen moral. Otros son simbólicos de una cosa u otra. Con todo, este es un libro breve pero divertido e intrigante sobre la cultura africana.

In the 2012 London Olympics, US gymnast Gabrielle Douglas stole hearts and flew high as the All-Around Gold Medal winner, as well as acting as a critical member of the US gold-medal-winning women gymnastics team. In this personal autobiography, Gabrielle tells her story of faith, perseverance, and determination, demonstrating you can reach your dreams if you let yourself soar.

Into a memoir that is gripping, funny, heartbreaking, and unforgettable, Walter Dean Myers richly weaves the details of his Harlem childhood in the 1940s and 1950s: a loving home life with his adopted parents, Bible school, street games, and the vitality of his neighborhood. Although Walter spent much of his time either getting into trouble or on the basketball court, secretly he was a voracious reader and an aspiring writer.

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.

Life takes unusual turns for a nomadic family and their animals, including a young pup born far away in the African desert. Due to sudden, strange events at their kraal, he is adopted by a free-range farmer to herd cattle in Molodi Valley. The pup, whose Faunalang name is Flame, faces many a challenge to prove himself to more than one of his new family.

Rhea's neighborhood is fading away—the mom-and-pop shops of her childhood forced out to make space for an artisanal kombucha brewery here, a hot yoga studio there. And everywhere, the feeling that this place is no longer meant for her. Because while their little corner of South L.A. isn't perfect, to Rhea and her two best friends, it's something even more important—it's home. And it's worth protecting. But as more white people flock to their latest edgy, urban paradise, more of Rhea's friends and family are pushed out. Until Rhea decides it's time to push back.

Millions of Africans were enslaved during the transatlantic slave trade, but few recorded their personal experiences. Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano is perhaps the most well known of the autobiographies that exist. Using this narrative as a primary source text, authors Monica Edinger and Lesley Younge share Equiano's life story in "found verse," supplemented with annotations to give listeners historical context.

You are INVITED. To a most marvelous party. For a most marvelous man. A man who turned the alphabet into THUMP A BUMP. Who turned words into JAZZ into RIVERS into BUSTIN' A MOVE. All of his word-children will be there, uh-huh. Because it’s a party for LANGSTON. Langston Hughes. King o’ Letters. Renaissance Man. So don’t be shy. Come on in. To the Hoopla in Harlem. EVERYONE is welcome.

Over the course of less than 24 hours in the spring of 1921, Tulsa’s infamous “Black Wall Street” was wiped off the map - and erased from the history books. Official records were disappeared, researchers were threatened, and the worst single incident of racial violence in American history was kept hidden for more than 50 years. But there were some secrets that would not die. A riveting and essential new book, The Ground Breaking not only tells the long-suppressed story of the notorious Tulsa race massacre.

A coming of age story about a boy growing up in Jamaica with his grandmother and extended family members. The child observes and reports of what he witnesses, taking the listener through a day, a week, and a brief life in a rural Jamaican community where some Jews live outwardly as Christians.

From one of the co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement comes a poetic memoir and reflection on humanity. Necessary and timely, Patrisse Cullors’ story asks us to remember that protest in the interest of the most vulnerable comes from love. Leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement have been called terrorists, a threat to America. But in truth, they are loving women whose life experiences have led them to seek justice for those victimized by the powerful.