American Power

In this sweeping history of popular music in the United States, NPR's acclaimed music critic examines how popular music shapes fundamental American ideas and beliefs, allowing us to communicate difficult emotions and truths about our most fraught social issues, most notably sex and race.

In Move On Up, Aaron Cohen tells the remarkable story of the explosion of soul music in Chicago. Record producers and songwriters broadcast optimism for black America's future through their sophisticated, jazz-inspired productions for the Dells and many others. Musicians like Phil Cohran and the Pharaohs used their music to voice Afrocentric philosophies that challenged racism and segregation, while Maurice White of Earth, Wind, and Fire and Chaka Khan created music that inspired black consciousness.

A generation of Americans came of age boycotting grapes, swept up in a movement that vanquished California's most powerful industry and accomplished the unthinkable: dignity and contracts for farm workers. Four decades later, Cesar Chavez's likeness graces postage stamps, and dozens of schools and streets have been renamed in his honor. But the real story of Chavez's farm workers' movement - both its historic triumphs and its tragic disintegration - has remained buried beneath the hagiography.

Clyde W. Ford uses the lives of individual Black men and women as a lens to explore the role they have played in creating American institutions of power and wealth—in agriculture, politics, jurisprudence, law enforcement, culture, medicine, financial services, and many other fields—while not being allowed to fully participate or share in the rewards. Today, activists have taken the struggle for racial equity and justice to the streets.

Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions provides a multidisciplinary exploration of the contemporary university's entanglement with the history of slavery and settler colonialism in the United States. Inspired by more than a hundred student-led protests during the Movement for Black Lives, contributors examine how campus rebellions - and university responses to them - expose the racialized inequities at the core of higher education.

The smooth faces of boy soldiers stand out in Civil War photography. Yet until now, scholars have largely overlooked the masses of underaged youths who served as musicians, carried wounded from the field, ran messages, took up arms, and died in both the Union and Confederate armies. Of Age is the first comprehensive study of how Americans responded to the unauthorized enlistment of minors in this conflict and the implications that followed.

This audiobook is about an African American male frustrated as a result of difficulties he encountered growing up. He found his problem common to the majority of peer members of his ethnic group compared to other ethnic peer group members' experience.

Black Women and Public Health creates an urgently needed interdisciplinary dialogue about issues of race, gender, and health. An enduring history of racism, sexism, and dehumanization of Black women's bodies has largely rendered the health needs of the Black community inaudible and invisible. Grounded in the lived experiences and expertise of Black women, this collection bridges gaps between researchers, practitioners, educators, and advocates.

Have you ever wondered How the US Became One of the World’s Superpowers? History facts will provide the answers. Looking back to the events of the past will unveil the beginnings of many societies and nations. You can also trace back cultures, traditions, and beliefs, if you spend some time listening to history audiobooks. Start learning today!

A collection of Ta-Nehisi Coates' Atlantic essays and musings originally published during President Obama’s administration. These essays concern black America and the shift of presidencies today. (Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book. If you’re looking for the original book, it is available from Amazon and Audible.)

Now is the time for women of color to step into their distinct power and be the transformative force for good at work. With the emergence of the #MeToo, #TimesUp, and #BlackLivesMatter movements, as well as the election of the most diverse and female Congress in history, America is experiencing a referendum on what power and leadership looks like. Women of color are the answer to that referendum and uniquely positioned to assume powerful roles in the country. But first, we have to be honest about the misogyny and racism that women of color experience at work and in their lives.

From the editor of the best-selling anthology The Meaning of Michelle, a celebration of one of the greatest stars of our time, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.

As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider's name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a 24-year-old warrior.

America is at a crossroads. We are alienated from civic engagement, and our democracy is in doubt. Yet there is a new energy in the air. Young people are again taking up the role they've often held: as leaders of change, demanding a better future, wielding their votes to uphold democracy and lead the country forward. Enter Generation Citizen, an organization dedicated to empowering youth through revitalizing civics education across America.

"Dear Dope Black Girl, you don’t know me, but I know you. I know you because I am you! We are magic, light, and stars in the universe.” So begins a letter that Tamara Winfrey Harris received as part of her Letters to Black Girls project, where she asked black women to write honest, open, and inspiring letters of support to young black girls aged 13 to 21. Her call went viral, resulting in a hundred personal letters from black women around the globe that cover topics such as identity, self-love, parents, violence, grief, mental health, sex, and sexuality.

They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They are taught their captors’ tongues and their beliefs, but they have a language and rituals all their own. In a world that would be allegorical if it weren’t saturated in harsh truths, Cato and William meet at Placid Hall, a plantation in an unspecified part of the American South. But their relationships begin to fray when a visiting minister with a mysterious past starts to fill their heads with ideas about independence.

The history of the United States is to a large extent a history of armed conflict. The nation was first forged in war, a tough fight for independence against one of the world’s largest empires, and that fight would resume less than a generation later with the War of 1812. Then there were constant low-level conflicts with Native Americans as the nation expanded westwards, and occasionally the country engaged in full-scale war against the Sioux, Comanche, and Apache. The country also fought the Mexican-American War, starting in 1846, and the bloody Civil War starting in 1861.

Since 2001, the US Department of State has been sending hip hop artists abroad to perform and teach as goodwill ambassadors. There are good reasons for this: Hip hop is known and loved across the globe, acknowledged and appreciated as a product of American culture. Hip hop has from its beginning been a means of creating community through artistic collaboration, fostering what hip hop artists call building.

James Meredith's 1966 march in Mississippi began as one man's peaceful protest for voter registration and became one of the South's most important demonstrations of the civil rights movement. It brought together leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, who formed an unlikely alliance that resulted in the Black Power movement, which ushered in a new era in the fight for equality. The retelling of Meredith's story opens on the day of his assassination attempt and goes back in time to recount the moments leading up to that event and its aftermath.

High Tension is the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's battle against the "Power Trust", an elaborate Wall Street-controlled web of holding companies, to electrify all of America. Here is the tale of how FDR's efforts brought affordable electricity to all Americans, powered the industrial might that won World War II, and established a model for public-private solutions today in areas such as transportation infrastructure, broadband, and health care.