Two assaults have already failed. After a morning-long battle involving machine guns, explosives, and tear gas, the radicals remain defiant. In a command post across the street from the boarded-up row house that serves as the militants' headquarters, the beleaguered police commissioner weighs his options and decides on a new plan. He will bomb the house.Let It Burn is the true-life story of the confrontation between the Philadelphia Police Department and the MOVE organization—a group that rejected modern technology and fought for what it called "natural law." The police commissioner's decision to drop an "explosive device" onto the house's roof—and then to let the resulting fire burn while adults and children remained in the house—was the final tragic chapter in a decades-long series of clashes that had already left one policeman dead and others injured, dozens of MOVE members behind bars, and their original compound razed to the ground.By the time the fire burned itself out, eleven MOVE members, many of them women and small children, would be dead. Sixty-one houses in the neighborhood would be destroyed.There would be a city inquiry, numerous civil suits, and two grand-jury inquests following the confrontation. Michael Boyette served on one of the grand juries, where he had a front-row seat as the key players and witnesses—including Mayor Wilson Goode and future Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell—recounted their roles in the tragedy. After the grand jury concluded its investigation, he and coauthor Randi Boyette conducted additional independent research—including exclusive interviews with police who had been on the scene and with MOVE members—to create this moment-by-moment account of the confrontation and the events leading up to it.

    Mississippi's Parchman State Penitentiary was the grandfather of them all, a hellhole where conditions were brutal. This epic history fills the gap between slavery and the civil rights era, showing how Parchman and Jim Crow justice proved that there could be something worse than slavery.

     Breathing new life into a story that has been rife with controversy and prejudice for over two centuries, the film follows the rise of the visionary Virginian slave, Nat Turner. Hired out by his owner to preach to and placate slaves on drought-plagued plantations, Turner eventually transforms into an inspired, impassioned, and fierce anti-slavery leader. Beautifully illustrated with stills from the movie and original illustrations, the book also features an essay by writer/director, Nate Parker, contributions by members of the cast and crew, and commentary by educator Brian Favors and historians Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Daina Ramey Berry who place Nat Turner and the rebellion he led into historical context. The Birth of a Nation reframes the way we think about slavery and resistance as it explores the passion, determination, and faith that inspired Nat Turner to sacrifice everything for freedom.

    Illustrated with previously unseen photographs and drawing on over 300 hours of interviews with band members, producers, friends, former lovers and associates, this biography traces the artist's life from his Minneapolis roots through controversial stardom to his rejection of the Prince persona.

    This one law so dramatically altered American society that, looking back, it seems preordained-as Everett Dirksen, the GOP leader in the Senate and a key supporter of the bill, said, “no force is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” But there was nothing predestined about the victory: a phalanx of powerful senators, pledging to “fight to the death” for segregation, launched the longest filibuster in American history to defeat it.The bill's passage has often been credited to the political leadership of President Lyndon Johnson, or the moral force of Martin Luther King. Yet as Clay Risen shows, the battle for the Civil Rights Act was a story much bigger than those two men. It was a broad, epic struggle, a sweeping tale of unceasing grassroots activism, ringing speeches, backroom deal-making and finally, hand-to-hand legislative combat. The larger-than-life cast of characters ranges from Senate lions like Mike Mansfield and Strom Thurmond to NAACP lobbyist Charles Mitchell, called “the 101st senator” for his Capitol Hill clout, and industrialist J. Irwin Miller, who helped mobilize a powerful religious coalition for the bill. The "idea whose time had come" would never have arrived without pressure from the streets and shrewd leadership in Congress--all captured in Risen's vivid narrative.This critical turning point in American history has never been thoroughly explored in a full-length account. Now, New York Times editor and acclaimed author Clay Risen delivers the full story, in all its complexity and drama.

    In October of 1912, seven years before gambling nearly destroyed the sport, the world of baseball got lucky. It would get two teams-the Boston Red Sox and the New York Giants, winners of a combined 208 games during the regular season-who may well have been the two finest ball clubs ever assembled to that point. Most importantly, during the course of eight games spanning nine days in that marvelous baseball autumn, they would elevate the World Series from a regional October novelty to a national obsession. The games would fight for space on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, battling both an assassin's bullet and the most sensational trial of the young century, with the Series often carrying the day and earning the "wood." In "The First Fall Classic," veteran sports journalist and author Mike Vaccaro brings to life a bygone era in cinematic and intimate detail-and gives fans a wonderful page-turner that re-creates the magic and suspense of the world's first "great" series.

    Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo's past--memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo's unique vernacular, and written from Hurston's perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

    Nevertheless, it has exerted a more powerful hold on international popular music than any nation besides England and America. From Prince Buster to Burning Spear, Lee "Scratch" Perry to Yellowman, Bob Marley to Shabba Ranks, reggae music is one of the most dynamic and powerful musical forms of the twentieth century. And, as Lloyd Bradley shows in his deft, definitive, and always entertaining book, it is and always has been the people's music. Born in the sound systems of the Kingston slums, reggae was the first music poor Jamaicans could call their own, and as it spread throughout the world, it always remained fluid, challenging, and distinctly Jamaican. Based on six years of research -- original interviews with most of reggae's key producers, musicians, and international players -- and a lifelong enthusiasm for one of the most remarkable of the world's musics, This Is Reggae Music is the definitive history of reggae.

    Posing as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone spent the next six years undercover in the Family, witnessing-and sometimes participating in-the Mafia's gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia-a New York Times bestseller and later a feature film starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. But because of pending trials at the time of publication, many details of the alleged crimes were held back. Now, in Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, Pistone for the first time reveals with great detail the horrific deeds of wiseguys Tony Mirra, “Lefty” Ruggiero, Sonny Black, and the rest of the cold-blooded Bonanno crew. Pistone puts the operation into historical perspective, detailing the timeline of Mafia trials that crippled the New York City crime family over the past 25 years. He also recounts his experiences after the operation, his time on the Hollywood set with Pacino and Depp, and other undercover operations through present-day. A tense, thrilling account of the greatest infiltration ever by a federal agent into the most brutal gang of killers in the world, Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business is the final chapter in the story of a real American hero.

    Based on scores of interviews with his family, friends and compatriots, along with voluminous research, this book gives the reader insight into the elusive and often eccentric personality of the composer. It paints a vivid picture of the difficulties faced by a serious jazz performer in the 50's and 60's who had to battle to overcome racism to make his mark as a musician. Beautifully illustrated with rare photos.

    Disco and salsa. The loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists. In the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented--all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another. Crime was everywhere, the government was broke, and the city's infrastructure was collapsing. But rent was cheap, and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless.Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is the first book to tell the full story of the era's music scenes and the phenomenal and surprising ways they intersected. From New Year's Day 1973 to New Year's Eve 1977, the book moves panoramically from post-Dylan Greenwich Village, to the arson-scarred South Bronx barrios where salsa and hip-hop were created, to the Lower Manhattan lofts where jazz and classical music were reimagined, to ramshackle clubs like CBGBs and The Gallery, where rock and dance music were hot-wired for a new generation. As they remade the music, the musicians at the center of the book invented themselves: Willie Colón and the Fania All-Stars renting Yankee Stadium to take salsa to the masses, New Jersey locals Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith claiming the jungleland of Manhattan as their own, Grandmaster Flash transforming the turntable into a musical instrument, David Byrne and Talking Heads proving that rock music "ain't no foolin' around." Will Hermes was there--venturing from his native Queens to the small dark rooms where the revolution was taking place--and in Love Goes to Buildings on Fire he captures the creativity, drive, and full-out lust for life of the great New York musicians of those years, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.

    Still, this first-hand account does shed much light on what it was really like to come under the charge of many different Indian tribes.Although Brayton’s treatment was not entirely negative or positive, his frank and blunt story does much to dispel the romantic stories that have been perpetuated about young settlers’ children who became Indian chattel. It does much to tell true history and dispel any deliberate or accidental revisions. In many cases the Indians treated Brayton well, but there can be no doubt that they stole from him and his family a life that would end up confused and stuck between two worlds. Although Brayton did finally unite with many of his natural family, he never stopped identifying with Native Americans, and he was forced to leave an Indian wife and child behind. In fact, when the War of Rebellion or Civil War broke out, Brayton enlisted and served in an American Indian brigade. Chet DembeckPublisher of One

    When she was told that she was going to be given as a wedding gift to Martha Washington’s granddaughter, Ona made the bold and brave decision to flee to the north, where she would be a fugitive. From her childhood, to her time with the Washingtons and living in the slave quarters, to her escape to New Hampshire, Erica Armstrong Dunbar, along with Kathleen Van Cleve, shares an intimate glimpse into the life of a little-known, but powerful figure in history, and her brave journey as she fled the most powerful couple in the country.

    Coauthors John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., give us a vividly detailed account of the journey of African Americans from their origins in the civilizations of Africa, through their years of slavery in the New World, to the successful struggle for freedom and its aftermath in the West Indies, Latin America, and the United States.This eighth edition has been revised to include expanded coverage of Africa; additional material in every chapter on the history and current situation of African Americans in the United States; new charts, maps, and black-and-white illustrations; and a third four-page color insert. The authors incorporate recent scholarship to examine slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the period between World War I and World War II (including the Harlem Renaissance).From Slavery to Freedom describes the rise of slavery, the interaction of European and African cultures in the New World, and the emergence of a distinct culture and way of life among slaves and free blacks. The authors examine the role of blacks in the nation's wars, the rise of an articulate, restless free black community by the end of the eighteenth century, and the growing resistance to slavery among an expanding segment of the black population. The book deals in considerable detail with the period after slavery, including the arduous struggle for first-class citizenship that has extended into the twentieth century. Many developments in recent African American history are examined, including demographic change; educational efforts; literary and cultural changes; problems in housing, health, juvenile matters, and poverty; the expansion of the black middle class; and the persistence of discrimination in the administration of justice. All who are interested in African Americans' continuing quest for equality will find a wealth of information based on the recent findings of many scholars. Professors Franklin and Moss have captured the tragedies and triumphs, the hurts and joys, the failures and successes, of blacks in a lively and readable volume that remains the most authoritative and comprehensive book of its kind.

    government—an usher in the White House. For more than 200 years, a small office has operated on the State Floor of the White House Executive Residence. Known as the Usher's Office, whose mission is to accommodate the personal needs of the first family, and to make the White House feel like a home. The Usher's Office is the managing office of the Executive Residence and its staff of 90-plus. The staff consists of butlers, carpenters, grounds personnel, electricians, painters, plumbers, florists, maids, housemen, cooks, chefs, storekeepers, curators, calligraphers, doormen, and administrative support. Ushers work closely with the first family, senior staff, Social Office, Press Office, Secret Service Agency, and military leaders to carry out White House functions: luncheons, dinners, teas, receptions, meetings, conferences, and more. Chris Emery was only the 18th White House Usher since 1891, and had the honor and privilege to serve presidential families for three years during the Reagan administration, four years for President H. W. Bush, and 14 months under President Clinton. His vignettes recreate intimate White House happenings from an insider’s viewpoint. Chris Emery was the only White House Usher to be terminated in the 20th century. Turn the pages to find out which first lady fired him... “With his book, White House Usher: Stories from the Inside, former usher Chris Emery gives his readers a peek inside what happens upstairs at the White House. Chris’ anecdotes tell a rich story of how America’s house really is the First Families’ home. I loved my trip down memory lane.” - Former First Lady Barbara Bush (October 2017)