Best of
African-American

1993

W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919


David Levering Lewis - 1993
    This monumental biography--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.

Flyy Girl


Omar Tyree - 1993
     Tracy Ellison, a young knockout with tall hair and attitude, is living life as fast as she can. Motivated by the material world, she and her friends love and leave the young men who will do anything to get next to them. It's only when the world of gratuitous sex threatens heartbreak that Tracy begins to examine her life, her goals, and her sexuality.

Daily Motivations for African-American Success


Dennis Kimbro - 1993
    Each lesson will last a lifetime!

Still Black, Still Strong: Survivors of the U.S. War Against Black Revolutionaries


Dhoruba Bin Wahad - 1993
    It recounts the stories of Dhoruba Bin Wahad, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur, all of whom were arrested and jailed during the COINTELPRO probe of the Black Panther Party.Dhoruba Bin Wahad, who organized chapters of the Black Panther Party in New York and along the Estern Seaboard and worked with tenants in Harlem and on drug rehabilitation in the Bronx, was accused of murdering two officers while still in his teens and imprisoned for 19 years. He always maintained his innocence and won his freedom by forcing the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed. The justice department eventually rescinded Bin Wahad's conviction and he was released in 1990, seven months after the documentary premiered.Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist who headed the Black Panther free breakfast program for inner-city school children in Philadelphia, was also accused of the murder of an officer and sent on death-row, where he still is today.Assata Shakur was a college educated social worker in her twenties when she was accused of shooting a cop, then arrested and tortured and denied medical treatment. Her interview was conducted in Cuba where she has been exiled since her escape from a New Jersey women's prison in 1975.Bin Wahad, Shakur and Abu-Jamal offer a little-known history and an incisive analysis of the Black Panthers' original goals, which the U.S. Government has tried to distort and suppress. As one confidential, 1969, memo to J. Edgar Hoover put it, "The Negro youth and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."

This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer


Kay Mills - 1993
    "Riveting. Provides a history that helps us to understand the choices made by so many black men and women of Hamer's generation, who somehow found the courage to join a movement in which they risked everything." —New York Times Book Review "One is forced to pause and consider that this black daughter of the Old South might have been braver than King and Malcolm." —Washington Post Book World "An epic that nurtures us as we confront today's challenges and helps us Keep Hope Alive.'" —Jesse L. Jackson "Not only does This Little Light of Mine recount a vital part of America"s history, but it lights our future as readers are inspired anew by Mrs. Hamer's spirit, courage, and commitment." —Marian Wright Edelman "This book is the essence of raw courage. It must be read." —Rep. John Lewis

Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom


Virginia Hamilton - 1993
    Leo and Diane Dillon’s brilliant black-and-white illustrations echo the stories’ subtlety and power, making this book as stunning to look at as it is to read.“There is probably no better way to convey the meaning of the institution of slavery as it existed in the United States to young readers than by using, as a text to share and discuss, Many Thousand Gone.”—The New York Times Book Review

The Genius of Huey P. Newton


Huey P. Newton - 1993
    Newton. Originally published circa 1968 as a fund raising tool for the "Free Huey" defense fund, this book delves deeply into Newton's thinking on a variety of political subjects. With an introduction by Eldridge Cleaver, it represents one of the most poignant tomes of the Black revolutionary period.

Crossing the Danger Water: Three Hundred Years of African-American Writing


Deirdre Mullane - 1993
    It includes poetry and prose by today's best and most well-known writers.

Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicians


Lawrence Cohn - 1993
    A guide to the best discography is included at the back of the book which will appeal to blues fans and record collectors.

Another Good Loving Blues


Arthur Flowers - 1993
    Flowers seamlessly blends the rich rythms of the blues and a Deep South patois in a lyrical, literate style." - THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWIt's Beale Street in Memphis in the age when jazz was spelled "jass" and ragtime was just a glint in Scott Joplin's eye. Lucas Bodeen is the bluesman, and Melvira Dupree is the conjure woman he loves. But pitted against them are all the forces of nature, the clashing of their own stubborn wills, and a society mired in the laws of Jim Crow and the mob. Combining the ancient African storytelling art of the griot with the American offshoots of blues and hoodoo, Arthur Flowers sings us a story that makes us smile - a story of life, and how love and happiness really happen.

Malcolm X: The Great Photographs


Thulani Davis - 1993
    Throughout his life, Malcolm X underwent many transformations: from junior high school class president to jazz-club shoeshine boy to railway worker to drug dealer. The photographs are from many of the great photographers of the time, including Gordan Parks, Eve Arnold and Henri Cartier-Bresson and document Malcolm X's work as a teacher, militant, orator and family man. The accompanying quotes are from writers, activists and ordinary people attesting to his impact in the 1960s.

Brown Angels: An Album of Pictures and Verse


Walter Dean Myers - 1993
    Sharing favorites from his collection of long-forgotten turn-of-the-century photographs, and punctuating them with his own moving poetry, Mr. Myers has created a beautiful album that reminds us that "the child in each of us is our most precious part."