History

SON OF VIRGINIA by L. Douglas Wilder details the events of the author’s life to paint a portrait of the changing face of America. It will be a story of constant struggle and conflict, not only Wilder’s struggle, but also that of courageous people who stood up to decades of discrimination, corruption and greed.

A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jennifer Berry Hawes.

A compilation of stories and narratives confirmed by numerous letters and documents are used by the author, Ron Walters, to establish the amazing fact that slavery existed in the United States well into the 20th century.

• The epic, unique, and haunting story an enslaved woman and her quest for justice
• Incorporates recent scholarship on slavery, reparations, and the ongoing connection between slavery and incarceration of black Americans
• McDaniel received a Public Scholar fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities that enabled him to write this book

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.

Founding Director Lonnie Bunch’s deeply personal tale of the triumphs and challenges of bringing the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture to life. His story is by turns inspiring, funny, frustrating, quixotic, bittersweet, and above all, a compelling read.

In this epic tale of love, loss and the cost of liberation, Addis, a 17-year-old enslaved girl, escapes from her enslaver, the first president of a young country.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson meticulously details in his It’s Our Music Too The Black Experience in Classical Music the black impact on classical music.

Did you know that many of America’s Founding Fathers―who fought for liberty and justice for all―were slave owners?

In her first book, The Presidency in Black and White, journalist April Ryan examined race in America through her experience as a White House reporter. In this book, she shifts the conversation from the White House to every home in America. At Mama’s Knee looks at race and race relations through the lessons that mothers transmit to their children.

African Americans Against the Bomb tells the compelling story of those black activists who fought for nuclear disarmament by connecting the nuclear issue with the fight for racial equality.

Short, emotional, literary, powerful―Tears We Cannot Stop is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.

In 1955, white men in the Mississippi Delta lynched a fourteen-year-old from Chicago named Emmett Till. His murder was part of a wave of white terrorism in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared public school segregation unconstitutional.

In Show Thyself a Man, Gregory Mixon explores the ways in which African Americans in postbellum Georgia used militia service after the Civil War to define freedom and citizenship. Independent militias empowered them to get involved in politics, secure their own financial independence, and mobilize for self-defense.

Drawing from the earliest chapters in US history, legal scholar Sheryll Cashin reveals the enduring legacy of America’s original sin, tracing how we transformed from a country without an entrenched construction of race to a nation where one drop of nonwhite blood merited exclusion from full citizenship.

Sections on labor recruiters, the black press, letters and visits home, life in the south, farm work, southern schools, the decision to move, community and church, heading north, a journey in stages, up north, housing, a mixed reception, factory work, discrimination on the job, blacks and unions, black women at work, Nannie Helen Burroughs, northern black businesses and much more.

"Drugs as Weapons Against Us" tells how scores of undercover U.S. Intelligence agents used drugs in the targeting of leftist leaders from SDS to the Black Panthers, Young Lords, Latin Kings, and the Occupy Movement.

Author Gil Klein reveals the role of Lafayette Square in the nation's history