Born in 1930, the mixed-race son of a hard-drinking black prostitute and a white cotton broker, Sample was raised in the Jim Crow South by an abusive mother who refused to let her son—who could pass for white—call her Mama. He watched for the police while she worked, whether as a prostitute, bootlegger, or running the best dice game in town. He loved his mother deeply but could no longer take her abuse and ran away from home at the age of twelve. In his early twenties, Sample was arrested for burglary, robbery, and robbery by assault and was sentenced to nearly twenty years in the Texas prison system in the 1950s and 60s. His light complexion made him stand out in the all-black prison plantation known as the “burnin’ hell,” where he and over four hundred prisoners picked cotton and worked the land while white shotgun-carrying guards followed on horseback. Sample earned the moniker “Racehoss” for his ability to hoe cotton faster than anyone else in his squad. A profound spiritual awakening in solitary confinement was a decisive moment for him, and he became determined to turn his life around. When he was finally released in 1972, he did just that. Though Sample was incarcerated in the twentieth century, his memoir reads like it came from the nineteenth. With new stories that had been edited out of the first edition, a foreword by Texas attorney and writer David R. Dow, and an afterword by Sample’s widow, Carol, this new edition of Racehoss: Big Emma’s Boy offers a more complete picture of this extraordinary time in America’s recent past.

    Though limited, mostly to guest singing appearances in splashy Hollywood musicals, "the beautiful Lena Horne," as she was often called, became a pioneering star for African Americans in the 1940s and fifties. Now James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, draws on a wealth of unmined material and hundreds of interviews -- one of them with Horne herself -- to give us the defining portrait of an American icon.Gavin has gotten closer than any other writer to the celebrity who has lived in reclusion since 1998. Incorporating insights from the likes of Ruby Dee, Tony Bennett, Diahann Carroll, Arthur Laurents, and several of Horne's fellow chorines from Harlem's Cotton Club, Stormy Weather offers a fascinating portrait of a complex, even tragic Horne -- a stunning talent who inspired such giants of showbiz as Barbra Streisand, Eartha Kitt, and Aretha Franklin, but whose frustrations with racism, and with tumultuous, root-less childhood, left wounds too deep to heal. The woman who emerged was as angry as she was luminous.From the Cotton Club's glory days and the back lots of Hollywood's biggest studios to the glitzy but bigoted hotels of Las Vegas's heyday, this behind-the-scenes look at an American icon is as much a story of the limits of the American dream as it is a masterful, ground-breaking biography.

    An African slave, Dorantes led an eight-year journey from Florida to California in the early sixteenth century—three hundred years before Lewis and Clark ventured west. An extraordinary true-life saga of courage, trials, and discovery that the Philadelphia Inquirer calls, “an adventure story more thrilling than Defoe or Melville could have imagined,” Crossing the Continent breaks new ground as it challenges the traditional view of American history.

    With a new introduction by celebrated baseball writer Roger Kahn and a new afterword by the author, updating John Henry's first year of ownership after nearly six decades of the Yawkey dynasty, the legacy of the late Will McDonough, and the author's return to his native Boston after a seventeen-year absence, Shut Out has reopened the discussion of baseball, race, and Boston with a new candor.

    It is the sound of isolation that has sold itself to millions.” Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is the best-selling piece of music in jazz history and, for many listeners, among the most haunting works of the twentieth century. It is also, notoriously, the only jazz album many people own. Recorded in 1959 (in nine miraculous hours), there has been nothing like it since. Richard Williams’s “richly informative” (The Guardian) history considers the album within its wider cultural context, showing how the record influenced such diverse artists as Steve Reich and the Velvet Underground.In the tradition of Alex Ross and Greil Marcus, the “effortlessly versatile” Williams (The Times) “connects these seemingly disparate phenomena with purpose, finesse and journalistic flair” (Financial Times), making masterly connections to painting, literature, philosophy, and poetry while identifying the qualities that make the album so uniquely appealing and surprisingly universal.

    Back in the days, gangs would battle not with guns, but by breakdancing. Back in the days, the streets-not corporate planning-set the standards for style. Back in the days, Jamel Shabazz was on the scene, photographing everyday people hangin' in Harlem, kickin' it in Queens, and cold chillin' in Brooklyn. Street styling with an attitude not seen in fashion for another twenty years to come, Shabazz's subjects strike poses that put supermodels to shame-showing off Kangol caps and Gazelle glasses, shell-top Adidas and suede Pumas with fat laces, shearling coats and leather jackets, gold rope chains, door-knocker earrings, name belts, boom boxes, and other designer finery. For anyone who wants to know what "keepin' it real" means, Back in the Days is the book of your dreams.

    A seminal work of modern photojournalism, this landmark collection of photographs and interviews documents the abandon and risk implied in the name of the gang Lyon belonged to: the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. With images and interviews that are as raw, alive, and dramatic today as they were three decades ago, this new edition includes startling new images: 15 additional black-and-white photographs and 14 color prints--long thought missing--of works originally published in black-and-white. With a new introduction by the author, The Bikeriders rides again, capturing like never before the dawn of the counterculture era.

    His uncle Ricky did not want him trapped by the "invisible chains" of systemic racism, so Ricky schooled him on the necessity of a black man running his own life, controlling his livelihood, and owning property.Embracing these lessons, Campbell discovered his gift for entrepreneurship: He created one of the first hip-hop record companies, Luke Records, which started out of a shed in his mom's backyard and grew into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. As a rapper on his own label, Luke became known as the "King of Dirty Rap" and helped pioneer the worldwide phenomenon of Miami Bass. He went on to become the front man and manager for the rap group 2 Live Crew, and was key to the success of the group's controversial platinum recording As Nasty As They Wanna Be.His hugely popular and provocative music infuriated the Man, and Luke was marked as public enemy number one when hip-hop crossed the color line into white America. Campbell would spend more than a million dollars of his own money fighting cops and prosecutors, and he went all the way to the Supreme Court to protect his—and every other artist's—right to free speech, setting landmark legal precedents that continue to shape the entertainment industry to this day.In Campbell's clear and honest voice, he shares unforgettable stories of his rise to celebrity status, including illicit tales from his raunchy concerts. He also breaks down how he lost his fortune, but in the process gained a better perspective on life. His father taught him to be responsible for his actions and to be proud of himself. Campbell expressed this by being cocky and holding his head up high, but, as he acknowledges, "America has never been an easy place for a black man who doesn't know how to apologize."Touching on some of the most pressing issues of our time, The Book of Luke is a raw and powerful memoir of how one man invented southern hip-hop, saved the First Amendment, and became a role model for the disenfranchised people of the city he calls home.

    Ginzburg compiles vivid newspaper accounts from 1886 to 1960 to provide insight and understanding of the history of racial violence.

    Illustrated.

    In the tradition of Howard Zinn this could be called 'The People's History of the Storm.' Jordan Flaherty was there on the front lines."Eve Ensler, playwright of "The Vagina Monologues" and activist and founder of V-Day"Jordan Flaherty brings the sharp analysis and dedication of a seasoned organizer to his writing, and insightful observation to his reporting. He unfailingly has his ear to the ground in a city that continues to reveal the floodlines of structural racism in America."Tram Nguyen, author of "We Are All Suspects Now: Untold Stories from Immigrant Communities after 9/11""Floodlines" is a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, "Floodlines" tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history.Jordan Flaherty is a writer and community organizer based in New Orleans. In addition to his award-winning post-Katrina journalism, he was the first journalist with a national audience to write about the Jena Six case and played an important role in bringing the story to theattention of the world. He has produced news segments for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and "Democracy Now!" and appeared as a guest on a wide range of television and radio shows, including CNN's "American Morning," "Anderson Cooper 360," "CNN Headline News," "GRITtv," "Keep Hope Alive with Reverend Jesse Jackson," and both local and nationally syndicated shows on National Public Radio.

    Perhaps no other writer is as synonymous with Harlem as James Baldwin (1924-1987). The events there that shaped his youth greatly influenced Baldwin's work, much of which focused on his experiences as a black man in white America. Go Tell It on the Mountain, The Fire Next Time, Notes of a Native Son, and Giovanni's Room are just a few of his classic fiction and nonfiction books that remain an essential part of the American canon. In Baldwin's Harlem, award-winning journalist Herb Boyd combines impeccable biographical research with astute literary criticism, and reveals to readers Baldwin's association with Harlem on both metaphorical and realistic levels. For example, Boyd describes Baldwin's relationship with Harlem Renaissance poet laureate Countee Cullen, who taught Baldwin French in the ninth grade. Packed with telling anecdotes, Baldwin's Harlem illuminates the writer's diverse views and impressions of the community that would remain a consistent presence in virtually all of his writing. Baldwin's Harlem provides an intelligent and enlightening look at one of America's most important literary enclaves.

    He examines music, books, newspaper reporting, and more to explore such issues as racism, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and political and economic injustices from a black point of view.

    If you traveled on the Underground Railroad--Where was the safest place to go?--Would you wear a disguise?--What would you do when you were free?This book tells you what it was like to be a slave trying to escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad.