Carmen Fields Collection

Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life? presents an oral, musical, and photographic record of the venerable Gullah culture in modern times. With roots stretching back to their slave forebears, the Johns Islanders and their folk traditions are a vital link between black Americans and their African and Caribbean ancestors.

Maya Angelou's unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS's American Masters.

Introduction by Augusta Baker. When Charlemae Hill Rollinss Christmas Gif was first published in 1963, it was greeted with much fanfare and celebration. Here, at long last, was the only collection of Christmas poems, stories, songs, and plantation recipes written by and about African-Americans.

Beautifully imagined and deeply compassionate, this is the story of two sisters--one a missionary in Africa and the other a child wife living in the South--who sustain their loyalty to and trust in each other across time, distance, and silence. This classic novel of American literature is rich with passion, pain, inspiration, and an indomitable love of life.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., recounts the trials and triumphs of his life as he rose from a sharecropper's hut to become an early and revered leader of the civil-rights struggle in the South.

A provocative novel about an African tribal woman's battle with madness after the trauma of a childhood genital mutilation.

In 1773, the slave Phillis Wheatley literally wrote her way to freedom. The first person of African descent to publish a book of poems in English, she was emancipated by her owners in recognition of her literary achievement. For a time, Wheatley was the most famous black woman in the West. But Thomas Jefferson, unlike his contemporaries Ben Franklin and George Washington, refused to acknowledge her gifts as a writer -- a repudiation that eventually inspired generations of black writers to build an extraordinary body of literature in their efforts to prove him wrong.

In November and December 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered five lectures for the renowned Massey Lecture Series of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Immediately released under the title Conscience for Change after King's assassination, it was republished as The Trumpet of Conscience. Each oration speaks prophetically to today's perils, addressing issues of equality, conscience and war, the mobilization of young people, and nonviolence. The book concludes with "A Christmas Sermon on Peace," a powerful lecture about nonviolence as a path to world peace that was broadcast live from Ebenezer Baptist Church on Christmas Eve in 1967.

Spanning the major events of five decades, Voices in the Mirror takes readers from Minnesota and Washington, D.C., to the glamour of Paris and the ghettos of Rio and Harlem. His intimate portrayals of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini; of the Muslim and African American icons Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammad and Muhammad Ali; of the young militants of the civil rights and black power movements; and of the tragic experiences of the less famous, like the Brazilian youngster Flavio, combine to form an unforgettable story.

Created as a living memorial to the philosophies and ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this essential volume includes more than 120 quotations from the greatest civil rights leader's speeches, sermons, and writings selected and introduced by Coretta Scott King.