At the close of the 19th century, a black woman of the South presents womanhood as a vital element in the regeneration and progress of her race.

    "The Living Is Easy" is delightfully wry and ironic humor--even bitchiness--of the novel coexists with a challenging moral and social complexity. "A powerful work."--"Essence" "Dorothy West is a brisk storyteller with an eye for ironic detail...a deft stylist and writer of social satire."--"Ms." "Long beloved for its wry and ironic humor, this novel continues to delight and challenge readers."--"Feminist Bookstore News" * Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month and Quality Paperback Book Clubs * Suggested for course use in: African-American studies20th-century U.S. literature

    After she is freed by the Union army, she works to reunify her family and embrace her heritage, committing herself to improving the conditions for blacks in America. Through her fascinating characters-including Iola's brother, who fights at the front in a colored regiment-Harper weaves a vibrant and provocative chronicle of the Civil War and its consequences through African American eyes in this critical contribution to the nation's literature.

    Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States.Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore’s early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist’s eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and the stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family.

    The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late '50s and '60s. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was present at all the major battlefields of the movement. Arrested more than forty times and severely beaten on several occasions, he was one of the youngest yet most courageous leaders. Written with charm, warmth, and honesty, Walking with the Wind offers rare insight into the movement and the personalities of all the civil rights leaders-what was happening behind the scenes, the infighting, struggles, and triumphs. Lewis takes us from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday." While there have been exceptional books on the movement, there has never been a front-line account by a man like John Lewis. A true American hero, his story is "destined to become a classic in civil rights literature." (Los Angeles Times)

    It celebrates a unifying heritage and illustrates an uplifting sense of sisterhood and the strong links that endure from generation to generation as well as the common obstacles that female writers of colour continue to face as they negotiate issues of race, gender and class.A glorious portrayal of the richness, magnitude and range of the singular and combined accomplishments of these women, New Daughters of Africa also testifies to a wealth of genres: autobiography, memoirs, oral history, letters, diaries, short stories, novels, poetry, drama, humour, politics, journalism, essays and speeches.It showcases key figures and popular contemporaries, as well as overlooked historical authors and today’s new and emerging writers. Amongst the 200 contributors are: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Patience Agbabi, Sefi Atta, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Malorie Blackman, Tanella Boni, Diana Evans, Bernardine Evaristo, Aminatta Forna, Danielle Legros Georges, Bonnie Greer, Andrea Levy, Imbolo Mbue, Yewande Omotoso, Nawal El Saadawi, Taiye Selasi, Warsan Shire, Zadie Smith and Andrea Stuart.A unique and seminal anthology, New Daughters of Africa represents the global sweep, diversity and extraordinary literary achievements of Black women writers whose voices, despite on going discussions, remain under-represented and underrated.

    She shares how she took on an entrenched system, gave a public voice to millions, and sets the stage for her trailblazing bid to be the first woman and first African-American President of the United States. By daring to be herself, Shirley Chisholm shows us how she forever changed the status quo. This expanded edition, edited by Scott Simpson, digs deeper with analysis by experts like Donna Brazile and Shola Lynch exploring Shirley Chisholm's impact on today and tomorrows world.

    We witness their drive as they build neighborhoods and networks and their energy as they enjoy leisure hours in dance halls and clubs. We learn of their militance and the way they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed and medically victimized. Finally, we see the despair and defeat provoked by Jim Crow laws and segregation and how they spurred large numbers of black laboring women to migrate north.Recommended by the Association of Black Women Historians.

    The same girl, now on the cusp of adulthood, shares her family’s growing fears that her father has disappeared. Acclaimed author Ann Petry penned these and the other unforgettable narratives in Miss Muriel and Other Stories more than seventy years ago, yet in them contemporary readers recognize characters who exist today and dilemmas that recur again and again: the reluctance of African Americans to seek help from the police, the rage that erupts in a black man worn down by brutality, the tyranny that the young can visit on their elders regardless of race. Originally published between 1945 and 1971, Petry’s stories capture the essence of African American experience since the 1940s.

    It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. Here, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.

    Sister Lilith - Honoree Fanonne JeffersThe Comet - W.E.B. Du Bois Chicage 1927 - Jewelle GomezBlack No More (novel excerpt) - George S. Schuyler separation anxiety - Evie Shockley Tasting Songs - Leone RossCan You Wear My Eyes - Kalamu ya SalaamLike Daughter - Tananarive Due Greedy Choke Puppy - Nalo Hopkinson Rhythm Travel - Amiri Baraka Buddy Bolden - Kalamu ya SalaamAye, and Gomorrah... - Samuel R. Delany Ganger (Ball Lightning) - Nalo HopkinsonThe Becoming - Akua Lezli HopeThe Goophered Grapevine - Charles W. ChestnuttThe Evening and the Morning and the Night - Octavia E. Butler Twice, at Once, Separated - Linda Addison Gimmile's Songs - Charles R. Saunders At the Huts of Ajala - Nisi Shawl The Woman in the Wall - Steven Barnes Ark of Bones - Henry Dumas Butta's Backyard Barbecue - Tony Medina Future Christmas (novel excerpt) - Ishmael ReedAt Life's Limits - Kiini Ibura Salaam The African Origins of UFOs (novel excerpt) - Anthony JosephThe Astral Visitor Delta Blues - Robert Fleming The Space Traders - Derrick Bell The Pretended - Darryl A. Smith Hussy Strutt - Ama PattersonEssays. Racism and Science Fiction - Samuel R. DelanyWhy Blacks Should Read (and Write) Science Fiction - Charles R. Saunders Black to the Future - Walter MosleyYet Do I Wonder - Paul D. MillerThe Monophobic Response - Octavia E. Butler

    His range is virtuosic, encompassing Mark Twain and Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson and Charlie Parker, The Birth of a Nation and the Dante-esque landscape of Harlem—“the scene and symbol of the Negro’s perpetual alienation in the land of his birth.” Throughout, he gives us what amounts to an episodic autobiography that traces his formation as a writer as well as the genesis of Invisible Man.On every page, Ellison reveals his idiosyncratic and often contrarian brilliance, his insistence on refuting both black and white stereotypes of what an African American writer should say or be. The result is a book that continues to instruct, delight, and occasionally outrage readers.

    Martin Luther King had a dream. And Stevie Wonder had a dream. This is a book about dreams.”In the Fall of 1980, Gil Scott-Heron was invited by Stevie Wonder to join him on a forty-one city tour across America that would end in Washington on January 15, 1981. The purpose of this tour was to raise popular support for the creation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a national holiday that would honor the great civil rights leader. This holiday became official in 1986. Scott-Heron uses this history-making tour as the backbone of his fascinating memoir.Raised by his grandmother in Jackson, Tennessee, Scott-Heron’s journey from these humble beginnings to becoming one of the most uncompromising and influential musicians and songwriters of his generation is a remarkable one. Frequently cited as the godfather of rap, Scott-Heron’s poetic output spanned from the politically savvy to the savagely satirical, from the socially conscious to the tenderhearted. His unexpected death in May 2011 robbed America of one its most vocal and articulate artists and resulted in an extraordinary outpouring of appreciation for him and his work from all around the world. Chuck D of Public Enemy said of Scott-Heron, “we do what we do and how we do because of you.” Eminem added, “Scott-Heron influenced all of hip-hop,” and from Sarah Silverman, “he mirrored ugliness with beauty, audacity, and valor.”This posthumous publication of The Last Holiday is a fitting testament to the career and achievements of Gil Scott-Heron. But it is also a heartfelt and highly personal account of his growing up in the South, a touching portrait of Stevie Wonder, and a compelling narrative vehicle for Scott-Heron’s keen insights into the music industry, the civil rights movement, modern America, governmental hypocrisy, and our wider place in the world.

    Exhausted by her political struggles, she is undergoing healing in the Southwest Community Infirmary. Confronting her there is Minnie Ransom, spinster and fabled vehicle of the spirit world.

    Nadia Owusu grew up all over the world—from Rome and London to Dar-es-Salaam and Kampala. When her mother abandoned her when she was two years old, the rejection caused Nadia to be confused about her identity. Even after her father died when she was thirteen and she was raised by her stepmother, she was unable to come to terms with who she was since she still felt motherless and alone. When Nadia went to university in America when she was eighteen she still felt as if she had so many competing personas that she couldn’t keep track of them all without cracking under the pressure of trying to hold herself together. A powerful coming-of-age story that explores timely and universal themes of identity, Aftershocks follows Nadia’s life as she hauls herself out of the wreckage and begins to understand that the only ground firm enough to count on is the one she writes into existence.