Born around 1817 in Maryland, Frederick Douglass was a former plantation slave who went on to become a brilliant writer and eloquent orator. In this amazing first-hand narrative, published in 1881, he vividly recounts his early years,...

When this volume of her autobiography opens, Angelou is returning home from Africa to work alongside Malcolm X. However, she shortly thereafter learns of his assassination and begins her dark journey through the violent terrain of the...

The illegitimate half African-American daughter of the southern Senator best known for his twenty-four-hour filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 reveals the discrepancies between the father she knew and his public persona, ...

In search of a place to call home, thousands of Hmong families made the journey from the war-torn jungles of Laos to the overcrowded refugee camps of Thailand and onward to America. But lacking a written language of their own, the Hmo...

The author recounts the shock he experienced when he learned that his father's relatives in Muncie, Indiana, were poor and black, and describes the prejudice that he and his brother endured from both sides. Reprint. NYT.

What does an undocumented immigrant look like? What kind of family must she come from? How could she get into this country? What is the true price she must pay to remain in the United States? JULISSA ARCE knows firsthand that the most...

Told with Baldwin's characteristically unflinching honesty, this collection of illuminating, deeply felt essays examines topics ranging from race relations in the United States to the role of the writer in society, and offers personal...

This brief life of Rosa Parks--whose brave decision not to give up her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955 was one of the key moments in the Civil Rights movement--reexamines her life and times. Brinkley is a historian known and respected ...

One of the most remarkable autobiographies of our time, Manchild in the Promised Land is a seminal work of modern literature published during a literary era marked by the ascendance of black writers like Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison,...

A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2017A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017A Shelf Awareness Best Book of 2017"Ants Among Elephants is an arresting, affecting and ultimately enlightening memoir. It is quite possibly...

In the segregated US of the mid-twentieth century, African-American travelers could have a hard time finding towns where they were legally allowed to stay at night and hotels, restaurants, and service stations willing to serve them. V...

Back in print in this handy pocket paperback format, ideal for Martin Luther King's Birthday (January 15) and Black History Month. (February). Over 200,000 copies sold--this perennial classic belongs in every home, school and library....

The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late '50s and '60s. As Chairman of t...

As seen on The Today Show and in the Washington Post's most inspiring stories of the year! “Important in helping us understand America’s complex racial history.”—Kenyatta D. Berry, Host of PBS&rsqu...

A young black man’s search to uncover his white mother’s past and his own identity. Born in Poland, the daughter of a rabbi, James McBride’s mother grew up in the Southern United States, ran away to Harlem, married a...

There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness.Cupcake Brown...

Hailed as 'compelling' by The Washington Post and 'stunningly honest' by The San Francisco Chronicle, this memoir has hit bestseller lists and earned critical praise from coast to coast. Rebecca Walker was born in 1969 to author Alice...

Condoleezza Rice has excelled as a diplomat, political scientist, and concert pianist.  Her achievements run the gamut from helping to oversee the collapse of communism in Europe and the decline of the Soviet Union, to working to pro...

A rediscovered, defiant work of Native American literature, presented here on the 175th anniversary of its first publication Upon its publication in 1833, this unflinching narrative by the vanquished Sauk leader Black Hawk was the fir...

John P. Parker is one of the few African Americans whose battle against slavery we can now turn to in his own words. He recounts dramatically how he helped fugitive slaves to cross the Ohio River from Kentucky and go north to freedom....

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONSolitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement―in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in ...

Award-winning poet Brandon Shimoda has crafted a lyrical portrait of his paternal grandfather, Midori Shimoda, whose life—child migrant, talented photographer, suspected enemy alien and spy, desert wanderer, American citizen—mirro...

An exciting and often terrifying adventure story, as well as an important precursor to such famous nineteenth-century slave narratives as Frederick Douglass's autobiographies, Olaudah Equiano's Narrative recounts his kidnapping in Afr...

A powerful memoir about the complicated but ultimately loving relationship between a black daughter and her white mother Secret Daughter is a deftly drawn and moving portrait of a childhood spent in two very different worlds: one w...

Richard Wright grew up in the woods of Mississippi amid poverty, hunger, fear, and hatred. He lied, stole, and raged at those around him; at six he was a 'drunkard,' hanging about in taverns. Surly, brutal, cold, suspicious, and self...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERNew York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2015New York Times: Dwight Garner's Best Books of 2015Washington Post: 10 Best Books of 2015Los Angeles Times: 31 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015Marie Claire: Best Books ...

A leading Lakota historian and storyteller offers a lively portrait of Crazy Horse, the era in which he lived, and his legacy, drawing on his own culture's oral tradition and firsthand research to capture diverse aspects of Crazy Hors...

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSLLER Winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Nonfiction A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New O...

NAMED A TOP 10 BOOK OF 2018 BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POSTFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE NONFICTION AWARDFINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN CURRENT INTERESTThe instant New York Times bestseller, "A mu...

Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Essays. Italian Studies. "NOT FOR NOTHING transported me. Curto's gritty specificity with coming-of-age memories is humourous, gripping, and thought-provoking. NOT FOR NOTHING takes on the beauty, pai...