Collection: Shop Black

A "fascinating and vividly rendered" (The Wall Street Journal) mystery featuring one of crime fiction's greatest protagonists--private investigator Easy Rawlins--as he agrees to a dangerous surveillance job.

It's 1953 in Red-baiting, blacklisting Los Angeles--a moral tar pit ready to swallow Easy Rawlins. Easy is out of the hurting business and into the housing (and favor) business when a racist IRS agent nails him for tax evasion. Special Agent Darryl T. Craxton, FBI, offers to bail him out if he agrees to infiltrate the First American Baptist Church and spy on alleged communist organizer Chaim Wenzler. That's when the murders begin....

"A treasure trove of information...told with real feeling." --Washington Post Book World

"Charming...honest...transcendent.... It reads like a warm and lengthy conversation with a close friend." --Billboard

The undisputed king of the blues, B.B. King puts his life into words in a story that spans tragedy, triumph, and everything in between--and he tells it just how he plays it, straight from the heart. A true-to-life tale of overcoming monumental odds to succeed as an artist in an often unfriendly world, Blues All Around Me is also the story of how blues music changed during its migration from the Mississippi Delta to urban areas such as Chicago. Rolling Stone calls B.B.'s memoir a "very American success story [told] with the lyricism and leisurely pace of a born storyteller."

Question: What's a five-year old genius' worst nightmare?
Answer: Another five-year-old genius.

Giant Afro. Even Bigger Brain.

Jaden Toussaint is a five year-old who knows it all. I mean, really knows it all. Animal Scientist. Great Debater. Master of the art of ninja dancing. There's nothing Jaden Toussaint can't do.

This time our hero must face his greatest fear: another 5 year-old who is as amazing as he his. Has Jaden Toussaint finally met his match? Will life as we know it end as a result? Will anyone ever eat his Super Sneaky 7 Fruit Fruit Salad Muffins? Find out in Episode 3: Muffin Wars.

Jabari is inventing a machine that will fly all the way across the yard! But making it take off will take grit, patience--and maybe even a little help from his sister.

Hacer una máquina voladora puede ser frustrante, pero una socia y un poco de paciencia es justo lo que podría hacer que el invento de Jabari despegue.

Jabari is making a flying machine in his own backyard! "It'll be easy. I don't need any help," he declares. But when his invention doesn't work, he gets frustrated. Good thing Dad is there for a pep talk, and his little sister, Nika, is around to assist and inspire, fairy wings and all. With the endearing father-child dynamic of Jabari Jumps and engaging mixed-media illustrations, Gaia Cornwall's tale shows that through perseverance and flexibility, an inventive thought can become a brilliant reality. Now available as a Spanish paperback edition.

Bestselling personal finance author Dennis Kimbro interviews prominent black millionaires to learn how they got where they are and offers key insights for those struggling to reach the next level.

It's no secret that these hard times have been even harder for the Black community.

Approximately 35 percent of African Americans had no measurable assets in 2009, and 24 percent of these same households had only a motor vehicle. Dennis Kimbro, observing how the weight of the continuing housing and credit crises disproportionately impacts the African-American community, takes a sharp look at a carefully cultivated group of individuals who've scaled the heights of success and how others can emulate them. Based on a seven year study of 1,000 of the wealthiest African Americans, The Wealth Choice offers a trove of sound and surprising advice about climbing the economic ladder, even when the odds seem stacked against you.

Readers will learn about how business leaders, entrepreneurs, and celebrities like Bob Johnson, Spike Lee, L. A. Reid, Herman Cain, T. D. Jakes and Tyrese Gibson found their paths to wealth; what they did or didn't learn about money early on; what they had to sacrifice to get to the top; and the role of discipline in managing their success. Through these stories, which include men and women at every stage of life and in every industry, Dennis Kimbro shows readers how to:

- Develop a wealth-generating mindset and habits
- Commit to lifelong learning
- Craft goals that match your passion
- Make short-term sacrifices for long-term gain
- Take calculated risks when opportunity presents itself

The remarkable story of a couple who came together during the civil rights movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers' rights their purpose for more than sixty years, overcoming adversity--with the strength of their love and commitment--to bring about meaningful change.

"A chronicle of lives of unwavering dedication. Now in their 80s, labor and civil rights activists Norman and Velma Hill recount more than six decades of struggles, triumphs, and frustrations in their tireless work as 'crusaders for democracy.'... An inspiring joint memoir." --Kirkus Reviews

When Velma Murphy was knocked unconscious by a brick thrown by a man from an angry white mob and was carried away by Norman Hill, it was the beginning of a six-decade-long love story and the turmoil, excitement, and struggle for civil rights and labor movements. In Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain, the Hills reflect upon their more than half a century of fighting to make America realize the best of itself.

Through profound conversations between the two, Velma and Norman Hill share their earliest memories of facing racial segregation in the 1960s, working with Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph, crossing paths with Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael. They also reveal how they kept white supremacists like David Duke from taking office, organized workers into unions, met with Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and continued to work tirelessly, fighting the good fight and successfully challenging power with truth.

"A powerful story." --The Horn Book

"A worthy addition to children's biography collections." --Booklist

"A solid treatment of an important but little-known figure, and it may prompt kids to think about the role and composition of a free press." --BCCB

"Cline-Ransome tells [Ethel Payne's] story with economy and drive. 'Somebody had to do the fighting, ' she quotes Payne saying, 'somebody had to speak up.'" --Publishers Weekly

Renowned author Lesa Cline-Ransome and celebrated illustrator John Parra unite to tell the inspiring story of Ethel Payne, a groundbreaking African American journalist known as the First Lady of the Black Press.

"I've had a box seat on history."

Ethel Payne always had an ear for stories. Seeking truth, justice, and equality, Ethel followed stories from her school newspaper in Chicago to Japan during World War II. It even led her to the White House briefing room, where she broke barriers as the only black female journalist. Ethel wasn't afraid to ask the tough questions of presidents, elected officials, or anyone else in charge, earning her the title, "First Lady of the Black Press."

Fearless and determined, Ethel Payne shined a light on the darkest moments in history, and her ear for stories sought answers to the questions that mattered most in the fight for Civil Rights.

Uncover the lives of thirteen African-Americans who fought during the Revolutionary War.

Even as American Patriots fought for independence from British rule during the Revolutionary War, oppressive conditions remained in place for the thousands of enslaved and free African Americans living in this country. But African Americans took up their own fight for freedom by joining the British and American armies; preaching, speaking out, and writing about the evils of slavery; and establishing settlements in Nova Scotia and Africa. The thirteen stories featured in this collection spotlight charismatic individuals who answered the cry for freedom, focusing on the choices they made and how they changed America both then and now. These individuals include: Boston King, Agrippa Hull, James Armistead Lafayette, Phillis Wheatley, Elizabeth "Mumbet" Freeman, Prince Hall, Mary Perth, Ona Judge, Sally Hemings, Paul Cuffe, John Kizell, Richard Allen, and Jarena Lee. Includes individual bibliographies and timelines, author note, and source notes.

This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop--with a fabulous cast of quirky characters.

Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors--many from her grandmother's original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away.

To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win's father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown...

"The claim of The Black Poets to being... an anthology is that it presents the full range of Black-American poetry, from the slave songs to the present day. It is important that folk poetry be included because it is the root and inspiration of later, literary poetry. Not only does this book present the full range of Black poetry, but it presents most poets in depths, and in some cases presents aspects of a poet neglected or overlooked before. Gwendolyn Brooks is represented not only by poems on racial and domestic themes, but is revealed as a writer of superb love lyrics. Tuming away from White models and retuming to their roots has freed Black poets to create a new poetry. This book records their progress."--from the Introduction by Dudley Randall

"Given the current political conditions, these lectures on race, ethnicity, and nation, delivered by Stuart Hall almost a quarter of a century ago, may be even more timely today."
--Angela Y. Davis

In this defining statement one of the founding figures of cultural studies reflects on the divisive, often deadly consequences of our contemporary politics of race and identity. As he untangles the power relations that permeate categories of race, ethnicity, and nationhood, Stuart Hall shows how old hierarchies of human identity were forcefully broken apart when oppressed groups introduced new meanings to the representation of difference.

Hall challenges us to find more sustainable ways of living with difference, redefining nation, race, and identity.

"Stuart Hall bracingly confronts the persistence of race--and its confounding liberal surrogates, ethnicity and nation...This is a profoundly humane work that...finds room for hope and change."
--Orlando Patterson

"Stuart Hall's written words were ardent, discerning, recondite, and provocative, his spoken voice lyrical, euphonious, passionate, at times rhapsodic and he changed the way an entire generation of critics and commentators debated issues of race and cultural difference."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"Essential reading for those seeking to understand Hall's tremendous impact on scholars, artists, and filmmakers on both sides of the Atlantic."
--Artforum

The second book in a three-volume series on Black American artists, featuring work from the 1950s to the 1970s that responded to the cultural, political, and social concerns of the era

During the turbulent 1950s to 1970s, Black American artists, responding to increasing civil rights activism, challenged inequities in the art world. Artists created works that celebrated their racial identity, connected with Black audiences, and participated in the struggle for political, economic, and social equality. The establishment of artist collectives, such as Spiral, and museums devoted to Black art, including the Studio Museum in Harlem, alongside the emergence of art historians and critics such as David Driskell and Linda Goode Bryant, marked early steps to bring Black art into broader artistic discourse.

The book features 140 color illustrations of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by such celebrated artists as Romare Bearden, Sam Gilliam, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Howardena Pindell, and Alma Thomas, as well as by under-recognized artists. Essays provide an overview of the period and in-depth examinations of James A. Porter, an artist and art historian credited with establishing the field of African American art history, and Merton D. Simpson, an abstract painter, member of the Spiral group, and one of the most important dealers of African art in the United States.

Published in association with the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

Exhibition Schedule:

Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis
(October 22, 2023-January 14, 2024)

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
(February 4-May 19, 2024)

When a prince sets out to find a princess to marry, he soon discovers this is not a simple task. There is no shortage of so-called princesses, but how can he tell whether or not they are what they claim to be?

Then one night a great storm rages, there comes a knock on the palace gate, and the prince's life is never the same . . .

Delve into the largely overlooked footprint that Black punks have on the underground music scene in a new archival publication brought to you by Raeghan Buchanan and Silver Sprocket.

The Secret History of Black Punk: Record Zero by Buchanan is an illustrated roll-call for punk, post-punk, hardcore, no-wave, and experimental bands from ground zero 'til now. A starting point for anyone curious, another reference for those who devour all genre-related things, or a cool artifact for anyone in the know.

This book is part of an ongoing series that covers musicians like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Poly Styrene, Don Letts, Minority Threat, and many others. From LA to London, from the early 1900s till today, Buchanan examines and presents narratives to show how Black musicians shape (and are shaped by) the world we live in.

Now published in a second edition with a spine for easy shelving!

Spunky Lola embarks on a new adventure--the first day of school!

Lola and her family prepare for the first day of school the night before, then get up early, take pictures, and head to class. Lola puts her things in her cubby, chooses her activities, reads, plays, and has a snack. Before she knows it, it's time to sing the good-bye song and rush into Mommy's arms for a warm reunion. A comforting, cheerful read that demystifies the school day for preschoolers and kindergarteners.

"Lynn Nottage's work explores depths of humanness, the overlapping complexities of race, gender, culture and history--and the startling simplicity of desire--with a clear tenderness, with humor, with compassion." --Paula Vogel, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

Intimate Apparel: "Thoughtful, affecting new play . . . with seamless elegance."--Charles Isherwood, Variety

Fabulation: "Robustly entertaining comedy . . . with punchy social insights and the firecracker snap of unexpected humor."--Ben Brantley, The New York Times

With her two latest plays, "exceptionally gifted playwright" (New York Observer) Lynn Nottage has created companion pieces that span 100 years in the lives of African American women. Intimate Apparel is about the empowerment of Esther, a proud and shy seamstress in 1905 New York who creates exquisite lingerie for both Fifth Avenue boudoirs and Tenderloin bordellos. In Fabulation Nottage re-imagines Esther as Undine, the PR-diva of today, who spirals down from her swanky Manhattan office to her roots back in Brooklyn. Through opposite journeys, Esther and Undine achieve the same satisfying end, one of self-discovery.

Lynn Nottage's plays include Crumbs from the Table of Joy; Mud, River, Stone; Por' Knockers; Las Menias; Fabulation and Intimate Apparel, for which she was awarded the Francesca Primus Prize and the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award in 2004. Her plays have been produced at theatres throughout the country, with Intimate Apparel slated for 16 productions during the 2005-2006 season.