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One of the most memorable speeches in American history, Frederick Douglass's What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? is now available in an elegant hardcover edition. Douglass first delivered the famous speech on July 5, 1852, to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. After paying respect to the patriotic architects of America's independence, Douglass exposed the hypocrisy of a nation that enshrined the inalienable rights of man yet enslaved millions. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was meaningless to slaves, Douglass argued, and the annual celebration of a freedom not afforded to them was the worst possible insult. Throughout the speech, Douglass directly quoted passages from the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bible to support his argument that slavery must be abolished in the United States. Douglass was especially critical of the faith leaders in America that used the church to justify slavery rather than to spearhead positive societal change. Despite Douglass's condemnation of the institutions that protected slavery, the speech also emphasized America's young age and her potential to change for the better. In keeping with this belief in an America that would one day guarantee freedom for all, Douglass delivered "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" to audiences nationwide in the decade preceding the Civil War. Famous figures such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Douglass's descendants have performed small sections of the hour-long speech. Abridged editions of the speech are also disseminated for educational purposes. Because "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" is an incredibly nuanced speech, it is often misrepresented or shared out of context. Now you can read the speech as it was meant to be experienced, in its entirety. Frederick Douglass's most famous speech is as relevant today as when it was first delivered in 1852. A defining document of the United States, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? is essential reading for all Americans.

Former enslaved person Mary Prince's powerful rallying cry for emancipation and extraordinary testament to survival

The History of Mary Prince (1831) was the first narrative of a black woman to be published in Britain. It describes Prince's sufferings as a slave in Bermuda, Turks Island and Antigua, and her eventual arrival in London with her brutal owner Mr Wood in 1828. Prince escaped from him and sought assistance from the Anti-Slavery Society, where she dictated her remarkable story to Susanna Strickland (later Moodie). A moving and graphic document, The History drew attention to the continuation of slavery in the Caribbean, despite an 1807 Act of Parliament officially ending the slave trade. It inspired two libel actions and ran into three editions in the year of its publication.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Written by HerselfBy Harriet Ann Jacobs

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and The Piano Lesson
Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play

It is the spring of 1948. In the still cool evenings of Pittsburgh's Hill district, familiar sounds fill the air. A rooster crows. Screen doors slam. The laughter of friends gathered for a backyard card game rises just above the wail of a mother who has lost her son. And there's the sound of the blues, played and sung by young men and women with little more than a guitar in their hands and a dream in their hearts.

August Wilson's Seven Guitars is the sixth chapter in his continuing theatrical saga that explores the hope, heartbreak, and heritage of the African-American experience in the twentieth century. The story follows a small group of friends who gather following the untimely death of Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton, a local blues guitarist on the edge of stardom. Together, they reminisce about his short life and discover the unspoken passions and undying spirit that live within each of them.

Winner of the American Book Award

A classic of the Black Arts Movement brought back to life in a refreshed edition

"A lion in literature's forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly."--Maya Angelou

Originally published in 1984, this collection of prose, prose poems, and lyric verses is as fresh and radical today as it was then. Sonia Sanchez, the premiere poet of the Black Arts Movement, shows the "razor blades" in clenched in her teeth in these powerful pieces.

"The Chaneysville Incident rivals Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon as the best novel about the black experience in America since Ellison's Invisible Man." -- Christian Science Monitor

Updated with a new foreword by the author in celebration of its fortieth anniversary, the classic PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel about a man's obsessive quest to uncover the circumstances of his father's death and his town's murky history.

Legend has it something happened in Chaneysville . . .

John Washington is coming home to Chaneysville. Old Jack Crawley, his father's closest friend and John's guardian, is dying, and the young man will care for him in his final days.

For the brilliant and embittered black historian, it is a return that will plunge him deep into the past, into the dark secrets of this town and the buried evil of his heritage. Investigating the death of his father, Moses, a moonshiner with a difficult past, John must come to terms with his family's proud and tragic history and the terrible truth of this white rural town close to the Mason Dixon line-- a waystation for slaves traveling along the Underground Railroad--that he once called home.

The Chaneysville Incident is the story of John's relationship with his family, his hometown, and the woman he loves--and the indelible bonds between past and present, oppression and bondage, history and myth, faith and guilt, love and acceptance.

"Wilson's melody here is the mournful sound of what might have been, a blues-tinged tale about a driven, almost demonic man. He's a petty thief named King who will stop at nothing for a better life. . . . King Hedley is a big play, filled with big emotions and big speeches. These aria-like monologues are rich in humor, heartbreak and the astonishing details that go into creating real people. With his latest arrival on Broadway, Wilson only has the first and last decades of the twentieth century to chronicle--it's been quite a journey. King Hedley will only add to that towering achievement."--Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press

"What makes Wilson America's greatest living playwright--aside from his gift for dialogue, which blends searing poetry with uncompromising realism--is the bracing humanism with which he provides insight into the struggles and aspirations of all individuals."--Elysa Gardner, USA Today

King Hedley II is the eighth work in playwright August Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling the history of the African American experience in each decade of the twentieth century. It's set in 1985 and tells the story of an ex-con in post-Reagan Pittsburgh trying to rebuild his life. Many critics have hailed the work as a haunting and challenging tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

August Wilson is the most influential and successful African American playwright writing today. He is the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences, The Piano Lesson, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Seven Guitars, Two Trains Running and Jitney. His plays have been produced all over the world, as well as on Broadway.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences comes Joe Turner's Come and Gone--Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play.

"The glow accompanying August Wilson's place in contemporary American theater is fixed."--Toni Morrison

When Harold Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is a free man--in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still, and the seemingly hospitable rooming house seethes with tension and distrust in the presence of this tormented stranger. Loomis is looking for the wife he left behind, believing that she can help him reclaim his old identity. But through his encounters with the other residents he begins to realize that what he really seeks is his rightful place in a new world--and it will take more than the skill of the local "People Finder" to discover it.

This jazz-influenced drama is a moving narrative of African-American experience in the 20th century.

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER.
New York Times Editor's Pick.
Library Journal Best Books of 2019.
TIME Magazine's "Best Memoirs of 2018 So Far."
O, Oprah's Magazine's "10 Titles to Pick Up Now."
Politics & Current Events 2018 O.W.L. Book Awards Winner
The Root Best of 2018

"This remarkable book reveals what inspired Patrisse's visionary and courageous activism and forces us to face the consequence of the choices our nation made when we criminalized a generation. This book is a must-read for all of us." - Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow

A poetic and powerful memoir about what it means to be a Black woman in America--and the co-founding of a movement that demands justice for all in the land of the free.

Raised by a single mother in an impoverished neighborhood in Los Angeles, Patrisse Khan-Cullors experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. For Patrisse, the most vulnerable people in the country are Black people. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system serving a white privilege agenda, Black people are subjected to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin's killer went free, Patrisse's outrage led her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi.

Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, these loving women founded a hashtag that birthed the movement to demand accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon people of Black and Brown skin.

Championing human rights in the face of violent racism, Patrisse is a survivor. She transformed her personal pain into political power, giving voice to a people suffering inequality and a movement fueled by her strength and love to tell the country--and the world--that Black Lives Matter.

When They Call You a Terrorist is Patrisse Khan-Cullors and asha bandele's reflection on humanity. It is an empowering account of survival, strength and resilience and a call to action to change the culture that declares innocent Black life expendable.

What seemed an ordinary homework assignment turned into a life changing adventure for Shar, Terrence, Ebony, Akiya, Marcus, and Chase as they take a scavenger hunt through town finding the contributions Black Americans have had to our everyday lives in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. Things are moving well until one phone call sends a cascade of things in motion that results in the frightening wail of sirens screaming down the street. How will the STEAM Chasers get out of this mess? Can the group use what they have learned from the inventors and thinkers they have met on their journey to help themselves and other kids that might encounter a similar situation?The STEAM Chasers will take you on a wild ride into the world of inventors and great thinkers, discovering their patents and copyrights as you learn about the impact Black Americans have made and continue to make to our world. From the folding chair to the automatic elevator door, the STEAM Chasers will introduce you to more than a dozen Black American inventors. And, don't worry, this is just the first adventure in their journey! Meet the STEAM Chasers!Shar loves all things chemistry and food science. She is quick witted and fiercely brave. Terrence is the mild mannered voice of reason who loves environmentalism as well as model building and mechanical engineering.Ebony is full of deep contemplation as she shares her love of all things astronomy and astrophysics and introduces the group to Greek and Roman mythology to help explain the constellations in our night sky.Akiya is a walking encyclopedia - who needs to ask their phone for answers when you have a friend with an almost photographic memory that is a prolific reader?Marcus is one half of the dynamic cousin duo known as "Lightning and Thunder". He is an expert on drones and loves all emerging technology.Chase is the "Thunder" side of the ever hilarious cousin duo and loves all things computer science - from programming to app design. This middle grade novel will delight readers as they find relatable characters who see the world through a similar lens to their own.

In this powerful sequence of TV images and essay, Claudia Rankine explores the personal and political unrest of our volatile new century

I forget things too. It makes me sad. Or it makes
me the saddest. The sadness is not really about
George W. or our American optimism; the
sadness lives in the recognition that a life can
not matter.

The award-winning poet Claudia Rankine, well known for her experimental multigenre writing, fuses the lyric, the essay, and the visual in this politically and morally fierce examination of solitude in the rapacious and media-driven assault on selfhood that is contemporary America. With wit and intelligence, Rankine strives toward an unprecedented clarity-of thought, imagination, and sentence-making-while arguing that recognition of others is the only salvation for ourselves, our art, and our government.

Don't Let Me Be Lonely is an important new confrontation with our culture, with a voice at its heart bewildered by its inadequacy in the face of race riots, terrorist attacks, medicated depression, and the antagonism of the television that won't leave us alone.

"The Blacker the Berry" is the provocative and illuminating 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance author Wallace Thurman. The novel follows the life of Emma Lou Morgan, a young black woman with dark skin. She is born and raised by her single mother in the predominantly white community of Boise, Idaho. She often feels like an outsider, even among her family, as they are lighter skinned than she, and believes that her dark skin will keep her from marrying and having an easy life. Emma wants a better life for herself and goes to college at the University of Southern California, hopeful she will find people who will accept her. While she finds a larger black community at college, she continues to feel like an outsider and is often made to feel inferior and unwanted due to her darker skin. Emma Lou's search for love and acceptance takes her to New York and the vibrant black community of Harlem after college, but she continues to face prejudice and rejection in a world she thought would be more accepting of her. Critically acclaimed, "The Blacker the Berry" remains an unflinching and thought-provoking examination of race, prejudice, and self-acceptance. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper.

"Warm, witty, imaginative. . . . This is a rich and winning book."--The New Yorker

Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature's most compelling and influential authors. Hurston's powerful novels of the South--including Jonah's Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God--continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality. First published in 1942, Dust Tracks on a Road is Hurston's personal story, told in her own words. The Perennial Modern Classics Deluxe edition includes an all-new forward by Maya Angelou, an extended biography by Valerie Boyd, and a special P.S. section featuring the contemporary reviews that greeted the book's original publication.

The Weary Blues is Langston Hughes's first published collection of poems, immediately celebrated as a tour de force upon its release. Over ninety years after its publication, it remains a critically acclaimed literary work and still evokes a fresh, contemporary feeling and offers a powerful reflection of the Black experience. From the title poem "The Weary Blues," echoing the sounds of the blues, to "Dream Variation," ringing with joyfulness, to the "Epilogue" that mimics Walt Whitman in its opening line, "I, too, sing America," Hughes writes clearly and colorfully, and his words remain prophetic and relevant today.

From the renowned author of Invisible Man, a classic, "elegant" (The New York Times) collection of essays that captures the breadth and complexity of his insights into racial identity, jazz and folklore, and citizenship across six decades.

Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison's literary executor, John F. Callahan, this definitive volume includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as "a body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race," and Going to the Territory (1986), an exploration of literature and folklore, jazz and culture, and the nature and quality of lives that Black Americans lead. With newly discovered essays and speeches, The Collected Essays reveals a more vulnerable, intimate side of Ellison than what we've previously seen. "Raph Ellison," wrote Stanley Crouch, "reached across race, religion, class and sex to make us all Americans."

Ranging from the seventeenth century to the present, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives draws upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, and interrogation transcripts to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. "An Outtake" chronicles an escaped slave's take on liberty and the American Revolution; "The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows" presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in Haiti and a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; "The Aeronauts" soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic Washington, and the theater of the U. S. Civil War; "Rivers" portrays a free Jim meeting up decades later with his former raftmate Huckleberry Finn; and in "Acrobatique," the subject of a famous Edgar Degas painting talks back.