Carmen Fields Collection

A 110-year-old black woman reminisces about her life, which has stretched from the days of slavery to the black militancy and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

A classic anthology of short stories by Black writers including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright -- edited and with an introduction by Langston Hughes.  Originally published in 1967, The Best Short Stories by Black Writers offers a timeless and unforgettable portrait of the tragedy, comedy, triumph, and suffering that were part of African American life from 1899 to 1967. 

Recounts the accomplishments of fifteen Black American men and women, including Martin Luther King, Mary McLeod Bethune, Adam Clayton Powell, and Booker T. Washington.

Dunbar is the first American Negro of pure African blood to reveal innate distinction in literature; as W.D. Howells has said, to feel the Negro life esthetically and express it lyrically.

Barack Obama's speech on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches should have represented the culmination of Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial unity. Yet, in Fracture, MSNBC national correspondent Joy-Ann Reid shows that, despite the progress we have made, we are still a nation divided--as seen recently in headline-making tragedies such as the killing of Trayvon Martin and the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore.

In the wake of talk of a "postracial" America upon Barack Obama's ascension as president of the United States, Michele Norris, cohost of National Public Radio's flagship program All Things Considered, set out to write, through original reporting, a book about "the hidden conversation" on race that is unfolding nationwide. She would, she thought, base her book on the frank disclosures of others on the subject, but she was soon disabused of her presumption when forced to confront the fact that "the conversation" in her own family had not been forthright.

Baratunde Thurston shares his 30-plus years of expertise in being black, with helpful essays like "How to Be the Black Friend," "How to Speak for All Black People," "How To Celebrate Black History Month," and more, in this satirical guide to race issues--written for black people and those who love them. Audacious, cunning, and razor-sharp, How to Be Black exposes the mass-media's insidiously racist, monochromatic portrayal of black culture's richness and variety.

As a woman, writer, mother, and feminist, Walker explores the theories and practices of feminism, incorporating what she calls the “womanist” tradition of African american women.

NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING VIOLA DAVIS AND CHADWICK BOSEMAN From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fences and The Piano Lesson comes the extraordinary Ma Rainey's Black Bottom--winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. The time is 1927. The place is a run-down recording studio in Chicago. Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer, is due to arrive with her entourage to cut new sides of old favorites. Waiting for her are her Black musician sidemen, the white owner of the record company, and her white manager. What goes down in the session to come is more than music. It is a riveting portrayal of black rage, of racism, of the self-hate that racism breeds, and of racial exploitation.

As she approaches the end of her teen years, Meridian Hill has already married, divorced, and given birth to a son. She's looking for a second chance, and at a small college outside Atlanta, Georgia, in the early 1960s, Meridian discovers the civil rights movement. So fully does the cause guide her life that she's willing to sacrifice virtually anything to help transform the conditions of a people whose subjugation she shares.

Howard Thurman's book on community. In this book, Thurman calls us at once to affirm our own identity, but then to look behind that identity to that which we have in common with all life.

In November and December 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered five lectures for the renowned Massey Lecture Series of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The collection was immediately released as a book under the title Conscience for Change, but after King’s assassination in 1968, the book was republished as The Trumpet of Conscience. The collection sums up his lasting creed and is his final testament on racism, poverty, and war.