Dow, author of The Autobiography of an ExecutionOn December 9, 1938, the state of Georgia executed six black men in eighty-one minutes in Tattnall Prison's electric chair. The executions were a record for the state that still stands today. The new prison, built with funds from FDR's New Deal, as well as the fact that the men were tried and executed rather than lynched were thought to be a sign of progress. They were anything but. While those men were arrested, convicted, sentenced, and executed in as little as six weeks---E. D. Rivers, the governor of the state, oversaw a pardon racket for white killers and criminals, allowed the Ku Klux Klan to infiltrate his administration, and bankrupted the state. Race and wealth were all that determined whether or not a man lived or died. There was no progress. There was no justice.David Beasley's Without Mercy is the harrowing true story of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the violent death throes of the Klan, but most of all it is the story of the stunning injustice of these executions and how they have seared distrust of the legal system into the consciousness of the Deep South, and it is a story that will forever be a testament to the death penalty's appalling inequality that continues to plague our nation

    In the midst of the Seven Years War (1758), at about age fifteen, Jemison was taken from her western Pennsylvania home by a Shawnee and French raiding party. Her family was killed, but Mary was traded to two Seneca sisters who adopted her to replace a slain brother. She lived to survive two Indian husbands, the births of eight children, the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the canal era in upstate New York. In 1833 she died at about age ninety.

    Today the small island stands alongside Plymouth Rock in our nation's founding mythology as the place where many of our ancestors first touched American soil. Ellis Island's heyday—from 1892 to 1924—coincided with one of the greatest mass movements of individuals the world has ever seen, with some twelve million immigrants inspected at its gates. In American Passage, Vincent J. Cannato masterfully illuminates the story of Ellis Island from the days when it hosted pirate hangings witnessed by thousands of New Yorkers in the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth century when massive migrations sparked fierce debate and hopeful new immigrants often encountered corruption, harsh conditions, and political scheming.American Passage captures a time and a place unparalleled in American immigration and history, and articulates the dramatic and bittersweet accounts of the immigrants, officials, interpreters, and social reformers who all play an important role in Ellis Island's chronicle. Cannato traces the politics, prejudices, and ideologies that surrounded the great immigration debate, to the shift from immigration to detention of aliens during World War II and the Cold War, all the way to the rebirth of the island as a national monument. Long after Ellis Island ceased to be the nation's preeminent immigrant inspection station, the debates that once swirled around it are still relevant to Americans a century later.In this sweeping, often heart-wrenching epic, Cannato reveals that the history of Ellis Island is ultimately the story of what it means to be an American.

    Lawrence Hill’s new book doesn’t lessen the awfulness of the times, but adds a unique human dimension. Hill has created an uplifting and highly educational story about a shameful part of history. The Book of Negroes is sold in the United States under the title, Someone Knows My Name. Aminata Diallo was born free in Africa in the eighteenth century. She had a rich and lovely childhood until the day she was captured by slave traders and marched off to the coast in chains. Along with thousands of others, Aminata was destined for North America as a slave to white owners. She was eleven years old. Hill tracks Aminata’s story through the circle of her life. Every Bookclub-in-a-Box discussion guide includes complete coverage of the themes and symbols, writing style, and interesting background information on the novel and the author.

    He got more column inches of newspaper coverage in the 1930s than FDR did. His racially and politically charged defeat of Max Schmeling in 1938 made Louis a national hero. But as important as his record is what he meant to African-Americans: at a time when the boxing ring was the only venue where black and white could meet on equal terms, Louis embodied all their hopes for dignity and equality.Through meticulous research and first-hand interviews, acclaimed historian and biographer Randy Roberts presents Louis, and his impact on sport and country, in a way never before accomplished. Roberts reveals an athlete who carefully managed his public image, and whose relationships with both the black and white communities—including his relationships with mobsters—were far more complex than the simplistic accounts of heroism and victimization that have dominated previous biographies.Richly researched and utterly captivating, this extraordinary biography presents the full range of Joe Louis’s power in and out of the boxing ring.

    When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.-back cover

    In his groundbreaking book, Disintegration, Pulitzer-Prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson argues that over decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and immigration, the concept of Black America has shattered. Instead of one black America, now there are four:• a Mainstream middle-class majority with a full ownership stake in American society;• a large, Abandoned minority with less hope of escaping poverty and dysfunction than at any time since Reconstruction’s crushing end; • a small Transcendent elite with such enormous wealth, power, and influence that even white folks have to genuflect; • and two newly Emergent groups—individuals of mixed-race heritage and communities of recent black immigrants—that make us wonder what “black” is even supposed to mean.Robinson shows that the four black Americas are increasingly distinct, separated by demography, geography, and psychology. They have different profiles, different mindsets, different hopes, fears, and dreams. What’s more, these groups have become so distinct that they view each other with mistrust and apprehension. And yet all are reluctant to acknowledge division. Disintegration offers a new paradigm for understanding race in America, with implications both hopeful and dispiriting. It shines necessary light on debates about affirmative action, racial identity, and the ultimate question of whether the black community will endure.

    H. Dalton,” a professor of racialist studies and a leading authority on inferior people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, and sexual preferences. In the grand tradition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Birth of a Nation, he is on a mission to clarify the truth about self-supremacy, drawing on eminent scholarship to enlighten a new generation of hate-mongers. Presenting evidence that everyone should be hated (even white people), A Practical Guide to Racism contains sparkling bits of wisdom on such subjects as: • The good life enjoyed by blacks, who shuffle through life unhindered by the white man’s burdens, such as reverse racism and white slavery, to become accomplished athletes, rhymesmiths, and dominoes champions. • The sad story of the industrious, intelligent Jews, whose entire reputation is sullied by their unfortunate taste for the blood of Christian babies. • A close look at the bizarre, sweet-smelling race known as “women,” who are not good at anything— especially ruling the free world. • A crucial manual to Arabs, a people so sensitive they are liable to blow up at any time. • A country-by-country breakdown of the “Yellow Peril,” with pointers for telling apart a race of people who all look the same. Also included is a comprehensive glossary of timeless epithets, with hundreds of pejorative words for everyone from Phoenicians to Jews. A Practical Guide to Racism is sure to spark honest, instructive discourse.

    Now, read the true story of one man's attempt to get inside the mind of the Green River Killer July 15, 1982: a woman's strangled body was found, caught on the pilings of Washington state's Green River. Before long, the "Green River Killer" would be suspected in at least forty-nine more homicides, with no end in sight. Then the authorities received an unbelievable letter from the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy -- then on Florida's death row -- offering to help catch the Green River Killer. But he would only talk to one man: Robert Keppel, the former homicide detective who had helped track Bundy's cross-county killing spree. Now these conversations are revealed, in which Bundy speculates about the motive and methods of the Green River Killer -- and reveals his own twisted secrets as well. Now, as never before, we look into the face of evil...and into the heart of a killer.

    Steward, The Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on, and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid (and often very funny) detail.After leaving the world of academe to become Phil Sparrow, a tattoo artist on Chicago’s notorious South State Street, Steward worked closely with Alfred Kinsey on his landmark sex research. During the early 1960s, Steward changed his name and identity once again, this time to write exceptionally literate, upbeat pro-homosexual pornography under the name of Phil Andros.Until today he has been known only as Phil Sparrow—but an extraordinary archive of his papers, lost since his death in 1983, has provided Justin Spring with the material for an exceptionally compassionate and brilliantly illuminating life-and-times biography. More than merely the story of one remarkable man, The Secret Historian is a moving portrait of homosexual life long before Stonewall and gay liberation.

    Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.How the States Got Their Shapes is the first book to tackle why our state lines are where they are. Here are the stories behind the stories, right down to the tiny northward jog at the eastern end of Tennessee and the teeny-tiny (and little known) parts of Delaware that are not attached to Delaware but to New Jersey.How the States Got Their Shapes examines:Why West Virginia has a finger creeping up the side of PennsylvaniaWhy Michigan has an upper peninsula that isn't attached to MichiganWhy some Hawaiian islands are not HawaiiWhy Texas and California are so outsized, especially when so many Midwestern states are nearly identical in sizePacked with fun oddities and trivia, this entertaining guide also reveals the major fault lines of American history, from ideological intrigues and religious intolerance to major territorial acquisitions. Adding the fresh lens of local geographic disputes, military skirmishes, and land grabs, Mark Stein shows how the seemingly haphazard puzzle pieces of our nation fit together perfectly.

     Now boasting three new chapters and an introduction exclusive the trade paperback edition, I'd Rather We Got Casinos And Other Black Thoughts by Larry Wilmore gives Wilmore's on-screen character of the same name a place to voice his opinions on controversial topics in a way that anyone can find amusing . . . and eye-opening. Exploring various literary forms such as op-ed pieces, epistolary entries, graduation speeches, and long-lost transcripts, the result is a collection that the expanded audience from his successful Comedy Central program will enjoy, including: why black weathermen make him feel happy (or sad); why brothas don't see UFOs; letters to the NAACP; and more, including his frustration with Black History Month -- after all, can twenty-eight days of trivia really make up for centuries of oppression?"

    We Africans in America have been socially engineered to reject our past, and far too many of us live in a state of suspended animation.

    Share in all the humorous and strange events that took place behind the scenes of some of the most famous Civil War moments. Picture a pedestal in a public park with no statue on top; Rowland’s book explains that when the members of the New York Monument Commission went to hire a sculptor to finish the statue, they were shocked to discover that there was no money left in the agency’s accounts to pay for the project. The money for the statue of Dan Sickles had been stolen—stolen by former monument committee chairman Dan Sickles! Brig. Gen. Philip Kearny was the son of a New York tycoon who had helped found the New York Stock Exchange, and who groomed his boy to be a force on Wall Street. The younger Kearny decided his call was to be a force on the field of battle, so despite a law degree and an inheritance of better than $1 million, he joined the U.S. Army and studied cavalry tactics in France. His dashing figure in the saddle earned him the name of Kearny the Magnificent, probably because Kearny rode with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other while holding the horse’s reins in his teeth. This habit proved useful after he lost his left arm in the Mexican War, because he was able to continue to wave his sword with all the menace to which he was accustomed while still guiding his horse.

    Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat--the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.