2022 Book Displays

Nine actresses, from Madame Sul-Te-Wan in Birth of a Nation (1915) to Ethel Waters in Member of the Wedding (1952), are profiled in African American Actresses. Charlene Regester poses questions about prevailing racial politics, on-screen and off-screen identities, and black stardom and white stardom. She reveals how these women fought for their roles as well as what they compromised (or didn't compromise). Regester repositions these actresses to highlight their contributions to cinema in the first half of the 20th century, taking an informed theoretical, historical, and critical approach.

Meet African American women of science and invention from the early years to modern Times Patricia Bath, M.D. Miriam E. Benjamin Ursula Burns Alexa Canady, M.D. Jewel Plummer Cobb, Ph.D. Ellen F. Eglin Angela D. Ferguson, M.D. Sara E. Goode Evelyn Boyd Granville, Ph.D. Dannellia Gladden Green, Ph.D. Bessie Blount Griffin Betty Wright Harris, Ph.D. Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D. Aprille Joy Ericsson Jackson, Ph.D. Mae Jemison, M.D. Marjorie Stewart Joyner, Ph.D. Mary Kenner Reatha Clark King, Ph.D. Annie Turnbo Malone Mildred Austin Smith Valerie Thomas Madame C. J. Walker Jane Cooke Wright, M.D. Roger Arliner Young, Ph.D. Chavonda J. Jacobs Young, Ph.D.

A portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer draws on letters, journals, and interviews to discuss her birth into a family of Georgia sharecroppers, her activism during the 1960s, and her literary achievements.

African American women artists have fought both racism and prejudice. Their works, remarkably varied in style, expression and medium, reflect the sensitivity and integrity that is, in part, a product of this struggle. The art of 24 African American women are examined: Lois Mailou Jones, Shirley Woodson, Howardena Pindell, Vivian Browne, Norma Morgan, Freida High W. Tesfagiorgis, Elizabeth Catlett, Jewel Simon, Faith Ringgold, Emma Amos, Robin Holder, Cynthia Hawkins, Camille Billops, Delilah Pierce, Yvonne Catchings, Gilda Snowden, Malkia Roberts, Ann Tanksley, Alma Woodsey Thomas, Clementine Hunter, Viola Burley Leak, Mary Reed Daniel, Adell Westbrook, and Nanette Carter. Their work is allied to various schools of art, from expressionism to realism.

An American hero. Nothing less can be said of Barbara Jordan. One of the most influential women of the 20th century, she held an unwavering faith in the American people and heralded patriotism, justice, and compassion. With exclusive cooperation from the Jordan estate, Mary Beth Rogers gives us an intimate look at the woman born in poverty in Houston's Fifth Ward, who went on to become a savvy politician and dynamic leader, exemplifying courage, honor and dignity. Refusing to be "an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution",* Barbara stirred the nation with her forceful and eloquent oratory during the Watergate hearings, yet in 1977 decided not to seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives, turning instead to a life of teaching amid rumors of a serious illness. A true woman of heroic proportions, Barbara Jordan spent her entire life shaping the way people think. With her powerful convictions and her flair for oratorical drama, Barbara Jordan helped change the landscape of America's 20th century. Her patriotism, her fire and her perseverance have touched us all. Through this book, her life and the footsteps she left will be reintroduced to a country that is inarguably better for her presence. Mary Beth Rogers taught American Politics with Barbara Jordan at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. A chief of staff for former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Mary Beth is now

An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America--the first African American to serve in that role--she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her--from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it--in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations--and whose story inspires us to do the same.

Beyond Respectability charts the development of African American women as public intellectuals and the evolution of their thought from the end of the 1800s through the Black Power era of the 1970s. Eschewing the Great Race Man paradigm so prominent in contemporary discourse, Brittney C. Cooper looks at the far-reaching intellectual achievements of female thinkers and activists like Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, Fannie Barrier Williams, Pauli Murray, and Toni Cade Bambara. Cooper delves into the processes that transformed these women and others into racial leadership figures, including long-overdue discussions of their theoretical output and personal experiences. As Cooper shows, their body of work critically reshaped our understandings of race and gender discourse. It also confronted entrenched ideas of how--and who--produced racial knowledge.

During the early 1890s, a series of shocking lynchings brought unprecedented international attention to American mob violence. This interest created an opportunity for Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist and civil rights activist from Memphis, to travel to England to cultivate British moral indignation against American lynching. Wells adapted race and gender roles established by African American abolitionists in Britain to legitimate her activism as a "black lady reformer"-a role American society denied her-and assert her right to defend her race from abroad. Based on extensive archival research conducted in the United States and Britain, Black Woman Reformer by Sarah Silkey explores Wells' 1893-94 antilynching campaigns within the broader contexts of nineteenth-century transatlantic reform networks and debates about the role of extralegal violence in American society. Through her speaking engagements, newspaper interviews, and the efforts of her British allies, Wells altered the framework of public debates on lynching in both Britain and the United States. No longer content to view lynching as a benign form of frontier justice, Britons accepted Wells' assertion that lynching was a racially motivated act of brutality designed to enforce white supremacy. As British criticism of lynching mounted, southern political leaders desperate to maintain positive relations with potential foreign investors were forced to choose whether to publicly defend or decry lynching. Although British moral pressure and media attention did not end lynching, the international scrutiny generated by Wells' campaigns transformed our understanding of racial violence and made American communities increasingly reluctant to embrace lynching.

The Harlem Renaissance is considered one of the most significant periods of creative and intellectual expression for African Americans. Beginning as early as 1914 and lasting into the 1940s, this era saw individuals reject the stereotypes of African Americans and confront the racist, social, political, and economic ideas that denied them citizenship and access to the American Dream. While the majority of recognized literary and artistic contributors to this period were black males, African American women were also key contributors. Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era profiles the most important figures of this cultural and intellectual movement. Highlighting the accomplishments of black women who sought to create positive change after the end of WWI, this reference work includes representatives not only from the literary scene but also: ActivistsActressesArtistsEducatorsEntrepreneursMusiciansPolitical leaders Scholars By acknowledging the women who played vital--if not always recognized--roles in this movement, this book shows how their participation helped set the stage for the continued transformation of the black community well into the 1960s. To fully realize the breadth of these contributions, editors Lean'tin L. Bracks and Jessie Carney Smith have assembled profiles written by a number of accomplished academics and historians from across the country. As such, Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era will be of interest to scholars of women's studies, African American studies, and cultural history, as well as students and anyone wishing to learn more about the women of this important era.

2015 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Longlisted for the 2015 American Library in Paris Book Award During the Jazz Age, France became a place where an African American woman could realize personal freedom and creativity, in narrative or in performance, in clay or on canvas, in life and in love. These women were participants in the life of the American expatriate colony, which included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Cole Porter, and they commingled with bohemian avant-garde writers and artists like Picasso, Breton, Colette, and Matisse. Bricktop's Paris introduces the reader to twenty-five of these women and the city they encountered. Following this nonfiction account, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting provides a fictionalized autobiography of Ada "Bricktop" Smith, which brings the players from the world of nonfiction into a Paris whose elegance masks a thriving underworld.

A New York Times Bestseller and National Book Award Winner Jacqueline Woodson, the acclaimed author of Red at the Bone, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson's eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become. A National Book Award Winner A Newbery Honor Book A Coretta Scott King Award Winner Praise for Jacqueline Woodson: Ms. Woodson writes with a sure understanding of the thoughts of young people, offering a poetic, eloquent narrative that is not simply a story . . . but a mature exploration of grown-up issues and self-discovery."--The New York Times Book Review

Back in print- an extraordinary first novel by a writer to watch and to enjoy.'* Told in the voice of a girl as she moves from childhood into adolescence, Buxton Spice is the story the town of Tamarind Grove- its eccentric families, its sweeping joys, and its sudden tragedies. The novel brings to life 1970s Guyana, a world at a cultural and political crossroads-and perfectly captures a child's keen observations, sense of wonder, and the growing complexity of consciousness that marks the passage from innocence to experience.

A celebratory and inspiring look at some of the most important Black women in STEM. Award-winning author Tonya Bolden explores Black women who have changed the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in America. Including groundbreaking computer scientists, doctors, inventors, physicists, pharmacists, mathematicians, aviators, and many more, this book celebrates more than 50 women who have shattered the glass ceiling, defied racial discrimination, and pioneered in their fields. In these profiles, young readers will find role models, inspirations, and maybe even reasons to be the STEM leaders of tomorrow. These stories help young readers to dream big and stay curious. The book includes endnotes, a bibliography, and an index.

In Children's Biographies of African American Women: Rhetoric, Public Memory, and Agency Sara C. VanderHaagen examines how these biographies encourage young readers to think about themselves as agents in a public world. Specifically VanderHaagen illustrates how these works use traditional means to serve progressive ends and thereby examines the rhetorical power of biography in shaping identity and promoting public action. Drawing on scholarship in rhetoric, memory studies, and children's literature, VanderHaagen presents rhetorical analyses of biographies of three African American women--poet Phillis Wheatley, activist Sojourner Truth, and educator-turned-politician Shirley Chisholm--published in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. VanderHaagen begins by analyzing how biographical sketches in books for black children published during the 1920s represent Wheatley and Truth. The study then shifts to books published between 1949 and 2015. VanderHaagen uses a concept adapted from philosopher Paul Ricoeur--the idea of the "agential spiral"--to chart the ways that biographies have used rhetoric to shape the life stories of Wheatley, Truth, and Chisholm. By bringing a critical, rhetorical perspective to the study of biographies for children, this book advances the understanding of how lives of the past are used persuasively to shape identity and encourage action in the contemporary public world. VanderHaagen contributes to the study of rhetoric and African American children's literature and refocuses the field of memory studies on children's biographies, a significant but often-overlooked genre through which public memories first take shape.

Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman--fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves--must confront long-hidden scars. From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.

New York Times bestseller National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Lambda Literary Award winner A best book of 2017: Time  NPR  People  Elle  The Washington Post  The Los Angeles Times  The Chicago Tribune  Newsday  St. Louis Post-Dispatch  PopSugar  BookRiot  Library Journal  Booklist  Kirkus Reviews  Shelf Awareness   New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and bodies, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as "wildly undisciplined," Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she casts an insightful and critical eye on her childhood, teens, and twenties--including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life--and brings readers into the present and the realities, pains, and joys of her daily life. With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and authority that have made her one of the most admired voices of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to be overweight in a time when the bigger you are, the less you are seen. Hunger is a deeply personal memoir from one of our finest writers, and tells a story that hasn't yet been told but needs to be.  

Audre Lorde was not only a famous black poet; she was also one of the most important radical black feminists of the past half century. I Am Your Sister collects her non-fiction prose from 1976 to 1990, and it is the first volume to provide a full picture of Lorde's political work (as opposed to her aesthetic work). The essays cover an impressive variety of topics: sexuality, race, gender, culture, class, parenting, disease, resistance, and power - both within the United States and across the African diaspora. While Lorde is best known as a progenitor of black feminist studies, I Am Your Sister stresses her signal influence in the creation of gay and lesbian studies. Lorde's work presaged the late 1980s shift in the academy toward the emphasis on the tight connections between race, class, gender, and sexuality - and later disability. Accordingly, the breadth of topics Lorde tacklesin the various essays in I Am Your Sister capture the spirit of intersectionality that now dominates analysis in the humanities and critical social sciences.

Winner in the book category of the AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers of 2003 competition presented by the American Institute of Graphic Arts Kara Walker (b. 1969) has emerged as one of her generation's most important artists. Best known for her provocative black paper cutout silhouettes, she confronts stereotypes, sex, violence, and power relationships through Civil War-era parodies, narratives, and a mastery of craft and installation. This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College and the Williams College Museum of Art, presents a comprehensive overview of Walker's work, beginning with her first cut-paper wall installation, Gone, An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred between the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart(1994). Other highlights include the 1996 series of twenty-four watercolor drawings, Brown Follies, which is reproduced in full as an artist's book within the book, and installation views of many of Walker's exhibitions. Recent drawings and projections are also featured. Throughout the book are a selection of the Walker's writings reproduced as they were created typed on index cards. These writings reveal a rarely seen side of the artist, whose words are as provocative as her installations and drawings. The essays discuss Walker's place in art history, formal and narrative readings of her work, her relation to culture at large, and issues of race, sexuality, and representation addressed in her work. Co-published with the Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College and Williams College Museum of Art.

A revealing portrait of one of the most gifted and charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century. Lorraine Hansberry, who died at thirty-four, was by all accounts a force of nature. Although best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, her short life was full of extraordinary experiences and achievements, and she had an unflinching commitment to social justice, which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. While her close friends and contemporaries, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone, have been rightly celebrated, her story has been diminished and relegated to one work'until now. In 2018, Hansberry will get the recognition she deserves with the PBS American Masters documentary "Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart" and Imani Perry's multi-dimensional, illuminating biography, Looking for Lorraine. After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways: challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters. Though she married a man, she identified as lesbian and, risking censure and the prospect of being outed, joined one of the nation's first lesbian organizations. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians, including Malcolm X, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, W.E.B. Du Bois, among others. Looking for Lorraine is a powerful insight into Hansberry's extraordinary life, a life that was tragically cut far too short.

The field of black women's history gained recognition as a legitimate field of study only late in the twentieth century. Collecting stories that are both deeply personal and powerfully political, Telling Histories compiles seventeen personal narratives by leading black women historians at various stages in their careers. Their essays illuminate how--first as graduate students and then as professional historians--they entered and navigated the realm of higher education, a world concerned with and dominated by whites and men. In distinct voices and from different vantage points, the personal histories revealed here also tell the story of the struggle to establish a new scholarly field. Black women, alleged by affirmative-action supporters and opponents to be "twofers," recount how they have confronted racism, sexism, and homophobia on college campuses. They explore how the personal and the political intersect in historical research and writing and in the academy. Organized by the years the contributors earned their Ph.D.'s, these essays follow the black women who entered the field of history during and after the civil rights and black power movements, endured the turbulent 1970s, and opened up the field of black women's history in the 1980s. By comparing the experiences of older and younger generations, this collection makes visible the benefits and drawbacks of the institutionalization of African American and African American women's history. Telling Histories captures the voices of these pioneers, intimately and publicly. Contributors: Elsa Barkley Brown, University of Maryland Mia Bay, Rutgers University Leslie Brown, Washington University in St. Louis Crystal N. Feimster, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Sharon Harley, University of Maryland Wanda A. Hendricks, University of South Carolina Darlene Clark Hine, Northwestern University Chana Kai Lee, University of Georgia Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University Nell Irvin Painter, Newark, New Jersey Merline Pitre, Texas Southern University Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago Julie Saville, University of Chicago Brenda Elaine Stevenson, University of California, Los Angeles Ula Taylor, University of California, Berkeley Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, Morgan State University Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University

A 2016 Caldecott Honor Book A 2016 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book A 2016 John Steptoe New Talent Illustrator Award Winner Stirring poems and stunning collage illustrations combine to celebrate the life of Fannie Lou Hamer, a champion of equal voting rights. "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." Despite fierce prejudice and abuse, even being beaten to within an inch of her life, Fannie Lou Hamer was a champion of civil rights from the 1950s until her death in 1977. Integral to the Freedom Summer of 1964, Ms. Hamer gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention that, despite President Johnson's interference, aired on national TV news and spurred the nation to support the Freedom Democrats. Featuring vibrant mixed-media art full of intricate detail, Voice of Freedom celebrates Fannie Lou Hamer's life and legacy with a message of hope, determination, and strength.