Collection: Shop Black

An intimate debut memoir from Mister Rogers' most endearing and groundbreaking neighbors--Officer Clemmons, the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children's television program.

"A heartwarming story that explores the power of friendship as well as race, sexuality, talent, and identity." --Kirkus Reviews

When he created the role of Officer Clemmons on the award-winning television series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, François Clemmons made history as the first African American actor to have a recurring role on a children's program. A new, wide world opened for Clemmons--but one that also required him to make painful personal choices and sacrifices.

Officer Clemmons details Clemmons's incredible life story, beginning with his early years in Alabama and Ohio, marked by family trauma and loss, through his studies as a music major at Oberlin College, where Clemmons began to investigate and embrace his homosexuality, to a chance encounter with Fred Rogers that changed the whole course of both men's lives, leading to a deep, spiritual friendship and mentorship spanning nearly 40 years.

From New York to Russia, Berlin to California, Grammy Award-winner Clemmons has performed for audiences around the world and remains a beloved figure. Evocative and intimate, and buoyed by its author's own vivacious, inimitable energy, Officer Clemmons chronicles a historical and enlightening life and career of a man who has brought joy to millions of adults and children, across generations and borders.

How do we move our country forward? Stacey Abrams has an answer in this bright and stirring biography, perfect for discussions of voting rights and how people working together can make a difference.

Stacey Abrams is the daughter of two civil-rights activists. She loved going into the voting booth with her parents on Election Day, knowing that their voices mattered. She loved school, even when she was the only Black student in her gifted classes. She loved her classmates at Spelman College -- a historically Black institution -- and worked hard to see they received the fair treatment they deserved.

And today, she brings all those experiences to her role as politician, author, and voting-rights advocate, helping to ensure that every person has a say and every vote gets counted. Stacey Abrams: Lift Every Voice follows Stacey's life from her girlhood to the present, but it also portrays the ordinary people that Stacey fights for -- the beautiful and diverse America that shows up to stand with one another. Backmatter includes a timeline of changes in US voting-rights law from the Constitution through the present day, demonstrating both how far the country has come and how far we have to go. With its spirited text and vivid illustrations, Stacey Abrams: Lift Every Voice will inspire readers to take their own steps forward.

For the first time in a collector's boxed set, the definitive three-volume Library of America James Baldwin edition gathering all his essential writings, including the collected essays and complete fiction.

With the novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a distillation of his own experiences as a preacher's son in 1930s Harlem, and the essay collection Notes of a Native Son (1955), James Baldwin established himself as a prophetic voice of his era. Some such voices may grow fainter with the passage of time, but Baldwin remains an inescapable presence, not only a chronicler of his epoch but a thinker who helped shape it. One of the great modern prose stylists, he applied his passion, wit, and relentlessly probing intelligence to the fault lines and false fronts of American society while remaining true to his early credo: "One writes out of one thing only--one's own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give."

THE JAMES BALDWIN COLLECTION includes:

Collected Essays (LOA #98)
Notes of a Native Son
Nobody Knows My Name
The Fire Next Time
No Name in the Street
The Devil Finds Work
other essays

Early Novels & Stories (LOA #97)
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Giovanni's Room
Another Country
Going to Meet the Man (including "Sonny's Blues")

Later Novels (LOA #272)
Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
If Beale Street Could Talk
Just Above My Head

Edited by Toni Morrison (#97 & 98) and Darrly Pinckney (#272), each volume contains a textual essay, a chronology of Baldwin's life and career, and detailed notes.

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Black Buck A speculative novel about a young woman--invisible by birth and relegated to second-class citizenship--who sets off on a mission to find her older brother, whom she had presumed dead but who is now the primary suspect in a high-profile political murder.

Despite the odds, Sweetmint, a young invisible woman, has done everything right her entire life--school, university, and now a highly sought-after apprenticeship with the Northwestern Hemisphere's premier inventor, a non-invisible man belonging to the Dominant Population who is as eccentric as he is enigmatic. But the world she has fought so hard to build after the disappearance of her older brother comes crashing down when authorities claim that not only is he well and alive, he's also the main suspect in the murder of the Chief Executive of the Northwestern Hemisphere. 

A manhunt ensues, and Sweetmint, armed with courage, intellect, and unwavering love for her brother, sets off on a mission to find him before it's too late. With five days until the hemisphere's big election, Sweetmint must dodge a relentless law officer who's determined to maintain order and an ambitious politician with sights set on becoming the next Chief Executive by any means necessary.

With the captivating worldbuilding of N. K. Jemisin's novels and blazing defiance of Naomi Alderman's work, This Great Hemisphere is a novel that brilliantly illustrates the degree to which reality can be shaped by non-truths and vicious manipulations, while shining a light on our ability to surprise ourselves when we stop giving in to the narratives others have written for us.

The legend of Bigfoot gets a bone-chilling update in this scary story about a young girl and her scout troop who are willing to brave the woods to find her missing friend when no one else will. Perfect for fans of Daka Hermon and Claribel A. Ortega!

The wilderness is in Jenna's blood. Her Pap was the first Black park ranger at Sturbridge Reservation, and she practically knows the Owlet Survival Handbook by heart. But she's never encountered a creature like the one that took her best friend Reese. Her parents don't believe her; the police are worthless, following the wrong leads; and the media isn't connecting the dots between Reese's disappearance and a string of other attacks. Determined to save her friend, Jenna joins a new local scout troop, and ventures back into the woods.

When the troop stumbles across suspicious signs: huge human-like footprints near the camp, scratch marks on trees, and ominous sounds from the woods, Jenna worries that whatever took Reese is back to take her too. Can she trust her new scout leader? And will her new friend Norrie--who makes her laugh and reminds her so much of Reese--believe her?

After the unthinkable happens, the scouts, armed with their wits and toiletries, band together to fight the monster and survive the night.

Here is a magnificent account of a past rich in beauty and creativity, but also in tragedy and trauma. Eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter blends a vivid narrative based on the latest research with a wonderful array of artwork by African American artists, works which add a new depth to our understanding of black history.

Painter offers a history written for a new generation of African Americans, stretching from life in Africa before slavery to today's hip-hop culture. The book describes the staggering number of Africans--over ten million--forcibly transported to the New World, most doomed to brutal servitude in Brazil and the Caribbean. Painter looks at the free black population, numbering close to half a million by 1860 (compared to almost four million slaves), and provides a gripping account of the horrible conditions of slavery itself. The book examines the Civil War, revealing that it only slowly became a war to end slavery, and shows how Reconstruction, after a promising start, was shut down by terrorism by white supremacists. Painter traces how through the long Jim Crow decades, blacks succeeded against enormous odds, creating schools and businesses and laying the foundations of our popular culture. We read about the glorious outburst of artistic creativity of the Harlem Renaissance, the courageous struggles for Civil Rights in the 1960s, the rise and fall of Black Power, the modern hip-hop movement, and two black Secretaries of State. Painter concludes that African Americans today are wealthier and better educated, but the disadvantaged are as vulnerable as ever.

Painter deeply enriches her narrative with a series of striking works of art--more than 150 in total, most in full color--works that profoundly engage with black history and that add a vital dimension to the story, a new form of witness that testifies to the passion and creativity of the African-American experience.

* Among the dozens of artists featured are Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford Delaney, Jacob Lawrence, and Kara Walker

* Filled with sharp portraits of important African Americans, from Olaudah Equiano (one of the first African slaves to leave a record of his captivity) and Toussaint L'Ouverture (who led the Haitian revolution), to Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X

Oh, so he cheated cheated? Girl, If I Was You...
Wait! You went through his phone and saw WHAT? Girl, If I Was You...
His other baby mama showed up at your work saying she's pregnant again? Girl, If I Was You...

We all know that friend who's quick to say what they'd do in any situation. And let's be real, we've all been that friend at some point.

Cynne Monroe's life got turned upside down when she started listening to the opinions of her friends and family a bit too much. After years with her child's father, she decided to follow their advice, making choices that ended up hurting the one who loved her most. She thought she'd find something better, but life had other plans. Karma has a way of coming back around, and for Cynne, it came back with a vengeance.

Larenz is a man who knows patience and determination. When he sets his mind on something, he's all in. Life hasn't been easy, but he's always believed things would get better. His love for Cynne never wavered, even when everything else was uncertain. He believed that if he could get everything else in line, she would come back to him. His love was stronger than any challenge, until one day, he had to start looking out for himself.

Cynne was always looking for something more, not realizing what she had right in front of her. By the time she sees the truth, it might be too late. Will Larenz give her another chance, or has he moved past her way of thinking?

A moving and inspiring nonfiction picture book about James Weldon Johnson and the first mass all-Black march for civil rights in the United States when 10,000 Black protestors, including children, marched down New York's Fifth Avenue.

James Weldon Johnson was a man of words. He wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing," a poem so uplifting and inspiring it became known as the Black national anthem. James was also a leader of the NAACP, and many people turned to him for advice in troubling times. And then was one of those times. White people were hurting Black people in scary and shocking ways.

"Let us march," James said, "in New York City." A big protest on the biggest avenue in the biggest city in the country. "And," he said, "let's make it a silent march." Because sometimes silence can be more powerful than screaming and shouting.

In July 1917, James helped lead thousands of children and adults in the Silent Protest Parade as they marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City. Today, the parade stands as an inspiring reminder of the power of protest in all forms, and the power and resilience of young people in the face of ongoing racial hatred and violence.

It's spooky season! Award-winning creators Frank Morrison and Connie Schofield-Morrison celebrate Halloween with their delightful series.

It's October, and that means it's time to carve pumpkins, hang up spooky decorations, and host a big ghosty dance party!

This girl hears the spooky spirit howling in the windy, misty gloom--SWOOM, SWOOP, SWOOSH! She dances with other ghouls and goblins--MONSTER MASH! She trades candy with her new spooky friend--CRACKLE CRUNCH!

Halloween may only be one night, but she knows the spooky spirit will be back next year.

In this exciting addition to the series including I Got the Rhythm, I Got the Christmas Spirit, and I Got the School Spirit, readers can explore the traditions of another fun holiday!

With Love, Miss Americanah--the Young Adult contemporary romance debut from Jane Igharo--sees a teenager move from Nigeria to America and navigate her senior year with the help of classic teen movies and a new crush, all while working through grief and the rigid expectations of her mother.

17-year-old Enore Adesuwa doesn't dive into things, she walks in carefully. So when she, her mother, and her sister move from Nigeria to America shortly after her father's death, she wants to be extremely prepared before attending an American high school. Her cousin, Adrian, doesn't have time to explain the ins and outs to her but, luckily, he recommends the perfect research tool: teen movies.

Still dealing with grief but armed with a set of rules of survival gathered from these movies (including the crucial rule of keeping a low profile), Enore is ready for her senior year. But when she meets Davi Santiago, it may be much harder than she thought to keep to her rules. Because not only is he super thoughtful (and okay, very good looking), he constantly encourages her to share her incredible singing talent. Enore prefers the background but it just might be time for her to take center stage, even in spite of her mother's strict expectations.

Maybe it would be easier to follow all the rules, the ones Enore set for herself and the ones her mom imposes, but as every teen movie has taught her, a coming-of-age is nothing without a little rebellion. And with help from her crush, her sister, and some new friends who don't quite fit the roles she expects them to play, Enore's senior year might indeed be cinematic.

The artist's most inspired works in one volume.

Jean-Michel Basquiat--artist and art world provocateur--took New York City by storm with his powerful and complex works that relentlessly engaged with charged sociopolitical issues, including race, police brutality, and structural inequity. In this important volume, devoted to an exhibition at the Brant Foundation in their newly opened Manhattan outpost featuring the artist's key works, Basquiat's art returns to its East Village roots, contextualized for the first time in decades in the very neighborhood that served as one of his greatest inspirations.

Dieter Buchhart, noted Basquiat scholar and curator, brings together one hundred of the artist's most important works, focusing on the best examples of the many subjects that informed Basquiat's work, from jazz, anatomy, sports figures, comics, classical literature, the African diaspora, and art history. The exhibition partially restages three of the artist's critical early shows, including an exhibition of the artist's paintings and drawings of heads at Robert Miller Gallery; his most important canvases from Gagosian Gallery's 1982 show in Los Angeles; and Basquiat's solo show at Fun Gallery in the East Village. Buchhart also considers in-depth the artist's so-called stretcher bar paintings, in which the normally hidden wooden supports for stretched canvases are exposed, works that have yet to be explored at length by scholars. In so doing, Buchhart offers a critical assessment of the enduring importance and legacy of the artist's work.

(c) Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.

Talia Hibbert meets Carley Fortune in this swoon-worthy story of love and friendship in the age of social media--where what you see might not be all you get.

To her countless Instagram followers Josephine Boateng is the dazzling Dr. Jojo--and her opinions on health, growth, and self-love matter. Her message: be smart (she has a medical degree after all), be significant, and do not put up with foolish men.

But behind the camera, Jo's story is more complicated--she finds her influencer career underwhelming; her potential career in medicine overwhelming, and she's hung up on her best friend, nepo-baby and romcom heartthrob Ezra Adelman. When Ezra shows up to his thirtieth birthday party with her childhood bully on his arm, however, Josephine realizes that it's time to take her own advice and prioritize herself for once.

No one is more shocked than Malcolm Waters when his debut novel turns him into a critic's darling. When he's invited to a swanky penthouse party to discuss turning his book into a film, he knows rubbing elbows with the elites of entertainment will be great for his career. The only problem: he's not good with people, and even worse at networking.

Just when he's about to throw in the towel, he's rescued by none other than Dr. Jojo. He's been following her on social media for years, and she's even more impressive in real life. And to his bewilderment, the feeling is mutual.

But in a world where the lines between private and public are as blurred as those between friendship and love, can they risk it all for something real?

Afronia is known for being bright and colorful, but what happens when a disgraced unicorn wants to take the color away? Join unicorn best friends Divine and Unique as they journey to save Afronia in this all-new, action-packed graphic novel that celebrates Black joy and beauty.

Welcome to the mystical land of Afronia, where life is good and full of color. The Afro Unicorns can't wait to celebrate the annual Festival of Crowns. But on the way to the festival, Divine and Unique come across Castle Monotonic, which is home to the mysterious Madame Imperious who wants to drain all the color from Afronia. Madame Imperious has already started draining the color from a young Afrosaurus. It's up to Unique and Divine to save Afronia and the Afrosaurus. Otherwise, their magical land might be doomed . . . FOREVER!

This full-color graphic novel is great for young readers beginning their graphic novel journey and graphic novel enthusiasts alike. It also features a Dyslexia-friendly font.

When Afro Unicorn creator April Showers realized that her favorite emoji--the unicorn!--was only available in white, she was inspired to create a more inclusive brand for children of color to celebrate how magical, unique, and divine they truly are.

Inspiring and timely, Pauli Murray's Revolutionary Life is the riveting story of an African American woman, born in 1910, who blazed through the barriers of race and gender decades before the Civil Rights and Women's Movements. Pauli Murray fearlessly rode freight trains dressed as a boy during the Great Depression and befriended First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt before embarking on a pioneering life of social activism, legal scholarship, and many firsts. In 1944, Pauli graduated first in her class at Howard University; in 1965, she was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate in law from Yale University; in 1966, she was a founder of NOW, the first National Organization for Women; and in 1977, Pauli was the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Pauli never faced a barrier she couldn't smash through, and her life as a feminist, civil rights lawyer, poet, author, activist, and priest paved the way for all to live a life of equality and purpose.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Pittsburgh's Hill District was the heart of the city's Black cultural life and home to a vibrant jazz scene. In Jazz in the Hill: Nightlife and Narratives of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood, Colter Harper looks at how jazz shaped the neighborhood and created a way of life. Beyond backdrops for remarkable careers, jazz clubs sparked the development of a self-determined African American community. In delving into the history of entrepreneurialism, placemaking, labor organizing, and critical listening in the Hill District, Harper forges connections to larger political contexts, processes of urban development, and civil rights struggles.

Harper adopts a broad approach in thinking about jazz clubs, foregrounding the network of patrons, business owners, and musicians who were actively invested in community building. Jazz in the Hill provides a valuable case study detailing the intersections of music, political and cultural history, public policy, labor, and law. The book addresses distinctive eras and issues of twentieth century American urban history, including notions of "vice" during the Prohibition Era (1920-1934); "blight" during the mid-twentieth century boom in urban redevelopment (1946-1973); and workplace integration during the civil rights era (1954-1968). Throughout, Harper demonstrates how the clubs, as a nexus of music, politics, economy, labor, and social relations, supported the livelihood of residents and artists while developing cultures of listening and learning. Though the neighborhood has undergone an extensive socioeconomic transformation that has muted its nightlife, this musical legacy continues to guide current development visions for the Hill on the cusp of its remaking.

Winner, 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award
For prize-winning poet Tiana Clark, trees will never be just trees. They will also and always be a row of gallows from which Black bodies once swung. This is an image that she cannot escape, but one that she has learned to lean into as she delves into personal and public histories, explicating memories and muses around race, elegy, family, and faith by making and breaking forms as well as probing mythology, literary history, her own ancestry, and, yes, even Rihanna. I Can't Talk About the Trees without the Blood, because Tiana cannot engage with the physical and psychic landscape of the South without seeing the braided trauma of the broken past--she will always see blood on the leaves.