Celebrating Black Stories Titles

Revealing the warm and astonishing story of an influential jazz legend, this personal narrative tells the story of a man’s journey from a Southern upbringing to a career touring the world to play for adoring fans. It tells how James Brown first discovered the Parker brothers—Melvin, the drummer, and Maceo on sax—in a band at a small North Carolina nightclub in 1963. Brown hired them both, but it was Maceo’s signature style that helped define Brown’s brand of funk, and the phrase “Maceo, I want you to blow!” became part of the lexicon of black music. A riveting story of musical education with frank and revelatory insights about George Clinton and others, this definitive autobiography arrives just in time to celebrate the 70th birthday of the author—one of the funkiest musicians alive—and will be enjoyed by jazz and funk aficionados alike.

Now in its 30th printing, this classic presents historical, archaeological, and anthropological evidence to support the theory that ancient Egypt was a black civilization.

Comprising elements of the avant-garde, science fiction, cutting-edge hip-hop, black comix, and graphic novels, Afrofuturism spans both underground and mainstream pop culture. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and all social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves. This book introduces readers to the burgeoning artists creating Afrofuturist works, the history of innovators in the past, and the wide range of subjects they explore. From the sci-fi literature of Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and NK Jemisin to the musical cosmos of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, to the visual and multimedia artists inspired by African Dogon myths and Egyptian deities, topics range from the “alien” experience of blacks in America to the “wake up” cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. Interviews with rappers, composers, musicians, singers, authors, comic illustrators, painters, and DJs, as well as Afrofuturist professors, provide a firsthand look at this fascinating movement.

Shawn Harrington returned to Marshall High School as an assistant coach years after appearing as a player in the iconic basketball documentary film Hoop Dreams. In January of 2014, Marshall's struggling team was about to improve after the addition of a charismatic but troubled player. Everything changed, however, when two young men opened fire on Harrington's car as he drove his daughter to school. Using his body to shield her, Harrington was struck and paralyzed. The mistaken-identity shooting was followed by a series of events that had a devastating impact on Harrington and Marshall's basketball family. Over the next three years it became obvious that the dream of the game providing a better life had nearly dissolved. Author Rus Bradburd tells Shawn's story with empathy and care, exploring the intertwined tragedies of gun violence, health care failure, racial assumptions, struggling educational systems, corruption in athletics—and the hope that can survive them all.

This exposé investigates the evolution of the Almighty Black P Stone Nation, a motley group of poverty-stricken teens transformed into a dominant gang accused of terroristic intentions. Interwoven into the narrative is the dynamic influence of leader Jeff Fort, who—despite his flamboyance and high visibility—instilled a rigid structure and discipline that afforded the young men a refuge and a sense of purpose in an often hopeless community. Details of how the Nation procured government funding for gang-related projects during the War on Poverty era and fueled bonuses and job security for law enforcement, and how Fort, in particular, masterminded a deal for $2.5 million to commit acts of terrorism in the United States on behalf of Libya are also revealed. In examining whether the Black P Stone Nation was a group of criminals, brainwashed terrorists, victims of their circumstances, or champions of social change, this social history provides an exploration of how and why gangs flourish and insight into the way in which minority crime is targeted in the community, reported in the media, and prosecuted in the courts.

Celebrating the lesser known but significant lives and contributions of our nation’s early African American leaders, this multicultural complement to most children’s books on the American Revolution covers a wide spectrum of subjects, including military, art, religion, and science. Weaving the histories of dozens of men and women—soldiers, sailors, ministers, poets, merchants, doctors, and other community leaders—to properly recognize them among the founders of the United States of America, this text gives a better sense of what these individuals accomplished and the times in which they lived. Activities include celebrating Constitution Day, cooking colonial foods, publishing a newspaper, petitioning their government, and more. This valuable resource also includes a time line of significant events, a list of historic sites to visit or explore online, and Web resources for further study.

A wide-ranging, powerful, alternative vision of the history of the United States and how the slave-breeding industry shaped it The American Slave Coast tells the horrific story of how the slavery business in the United States made the reproductive labor of "breeding women" essential to the expansion of the nation. The book shows how slaves' children, and their children's children, were human savings accounts that were the basis of money and credit. This was so deeply embedded in the economy of the slave states that it could only be decommissioned by Emancipation, achieved through the bloodiest war in the history of the United States. The American Slave Coast is an alternative history of the United States that presents the slavery business, as well as familiar historical figures and events, in a revealing new light.

On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiancée. She described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, "He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looked at Jeff and asked, "What can you do?" Fifty years later, Haas finds that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. With a new prologue discussing what has changed—and what has not—The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas's personal account of how he and People's Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton's assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Not only a story of justice delivered, the book puts Hampton in the spotlight as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

This presents the life story of African American revolutionary Shakur, previously known as JoAnne Chesimard.

This go-to guide can be your handbook as you enter the art world and navigate the nuances of becoming self-sufficient. Instead of feeding you new techniques, it will provide you with insights to help you make decisions based on your specific situation and goals. By the end of this book, you will have a set of guidelines for scenarios that range from taking on commission work and conducting negotiations to dealing with rejection and improving your organization. Be the Artist is designed to help up-and-coming creatives educate themselves on essential yet seldom-discussed strategies, learn about new and relevant artists, and gather the resources they need to build their business.

Imagine a five-foot-two-inch-tall woman riding a Harley eight times across the continental United States. Now imagine she is black and is journeying across the country in the pre-Civil Rights era of the 1930s and '40s. That is the amazing true story of Bessie Stringfield, the woman known today as The Motorcycle Queen of Miami and the first black woman to be inducted into the American Motorcyclist Association Hall of Fame and the Harley Davidson Hall of Fame. Stringfield was a pioneer in motorcycling during her lifetime; she rode as a civilian courier for the US military and founded the Iron Horse Motorcycle Club in Miami, all while confronting and overcoming Jim Crow in every ride.

This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs—many never before seen—as well as revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on America's early frontiers. This revised volume includes an exciting new chapter on the Civil War and the experiences of African Americans on the western frontier. Among its fascinating accounts are those explaining how thousands of enslaved people in Arkansas, Missouri and Texas successfully escaped into the neighboring Indian Territory in Oklahoma. These runaways inspired the idea eventually adopted as the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves within the states that were in rebellion. Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes, The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers like Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick; Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary; Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill—and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo. 

"A fresh new perspective that will be a true revolution to readers and will open new lines of discussion on . . . the importance of the city of New Orleans for generations to come." —Dr. Michael White, jazz clarinetist, composer, and Keller Endowed Chair at Xavier University of LA  An untold authentic counter-narrative blues history and the first written by an African American blues artist  All prior histories on the blues have alleged it originated on plantations in the Mississippi Delta. Not true, says author Chris Thomas King. In The Blues, King present facts to disprove such myths.  This book is the first to argue the blues began as a cosmopolitan art form, not a rural one.  As early as 1900, the sound of the blues was ubiquitous in New Orleans. The Mississippi Delta, meanwhile, was an unpopulated sportsman's paradise—the frontier was still in the process of being cleared and drained for cultivation.? Expecting these findings to be controversial in some circles, King has buttressed his conclusions with primary sources and years of extensive research, including a sojourn to West Africa and interviews with surviving folklorists and blues researchers from the 1960s folk-rediscovery epoch.? New Orleans, King states, was the only place in the Deep South where the sacred and profane could party together without fear of persecution, creating the blues.   

On New Year's Eve, 1939, Elmer Rogers and his wife, Marie, were preparing for bed when a shotgun blast sent buckshot deep into Elmer's rib cage. When Marie ran from the room, screaming for help, a second gunshot erupted. The eldest Rogers child grabbed his baby brother and ran while the middle child clung to the bed frame, paralyzed with terror. The intruders poured coal oil around the house and set fire to the front door before escaping. Within a matter of days, investigators identified several suspects: convicts who had been at a craps game with Rogers the night before. Also at the craps game was a young black farmer named W. D. Lyons. As anger at authorities grew, political pressure mounted to find a villain. The governor's representative settled on Lyons, who was arrested, tortured into signing a confession, and tried for the murder. The NAACP's new Legal Defense and Education Fund sent its young chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall, to take part in the trial. The NAACP desperately needed money, and Marshall was convinced that the Lyons case could be a fundraising boon for both the state and national organizations. It was. The case went on to the US Supreme Court, and the NAACP raised much-needed money from the publicity. Conviction is the story of Lyons v. Oklahoma, the oft-forgotten case that set Marshall and the NAACP on the path that led ultimately to victory in Brown v. Board of Education and the accompanying social revolution in the United States.

In 1950, a Negro man named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by a white policeman during an encounter involving a ride on a city bus. Brooks and Thomas Gray played football together as kids. Gray and other fellow veterans, outraged about an unjustifiable fatal shooting, protested, eventually staging a major march against police brutality downtown. Five years later, Gray protested again, this time against the unjust treatment of Negroes on the city's segregated buses. Author Karen Gray Houston's father, Thomas Gray, and her uncle, Fred D. Gray, were boycott leaders. Fred Gray represented Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and rarely mentioned teenage activist Claudette Colvin, a named plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the Supreme Court case that forced Alabama to desegregate its buses. Only as an adult did Houston began to appreciate how, in the face of threats and bombings, their bold, selfless actions helped change the nation's racial climate, opening doors of opportunity for her and countless others. Daughter of the Boycott takes the reader on a journey through the struggles Houston's family faced before and after the boycott, including the violence and setbacks. With the trained eye of an investigative reporter, she gives voice to the lives affected by this historical moment.