Washoe County Library System

"When President Theodore Roosevelt welcomed the country's most visible Black man, Booker T. Washington, into his circle of counselors in 1901, the two confronted a shocking and violent wave of racist outrage. In the previous decade, Jim Crow laws had legalized discrimination in the South, eroding social and economic gains for former slaves. Lynching was on the rise, and Black Americans faced new barriers to voting. Slavery had been abolished, but...

"Atlanta is widely considered to be America's Black Mecca. It has a higher concentration of black millionaires, black-owned businesses, and HBCUs than any other city in the United States. African Americans are overrepresented in every strata of Atlanta's governance. In 2020, more black voters in the Atlanta area cast ballots than those in any other state's metro, evincing a political power that flipped a once deeply red state blue. However, 150 years...

''The host of MSNBC's The ReidOut and New York Times bestselling author of The Man Who Sold America traces the extraordinary lives and legacy of civil rights icons Medgar and Myrlie Evers, situating Medgar Evers's assassination as a catalyzing moment in American history. Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later, and Myrlie left school to focus on their growing...

"In Radical Reparations, this conversation shifter, social justice pioneer, change agent, and inventor of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, which redefined the global conversation on racism and social justice, offers a unifying and unconventional framework for achieving holistic and comprehensive healing of African American communities. Hunter reimagines reparations through a profound new lens as he defines seven types of compensation: political, intellectual,...

"A magnificent, foundational reckoning with how Black Americans have used the written word to define and redefine themselves, in resistance to the lies of racism and often in heated disagreement with each other, over the course of the country's history. Distilled over many years from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s legendary Harvard introductory course in African American Studies, The Black Box: Writing the Race, is the story of Black self-definition in...

"This personal biography of America, offered from the thoughtful viewpoint of a Black anthropologist, takes on some of the country's fiercest debates and most profound challenges with an unflinching style. Black Lives, American Love is a relentless truth-telling about our country's failures to its Black population-yet it is also a discussion on how we might all do more to secure America's still vastly beautiful possibilities of liberty and the pursuit...

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: a stunning meditation on ritual and collectiveness that explores how older forms of inquiry-from song to prayer to ways of public gathering-might help us all survive violent times and address America's shared history"-- "In 2020, heartsick from constant assaults on Black life, Tracy K. Smith found herself soul-searching and digging into the historical archive for help navigating the “din of human division...

"Freedom and equality are the watchwords of American democracy. But like justice, freedom and equality are meaningless when there is no corresponding practical application of the ideals they represent. Physical, bodily liberty is fundamental to every American's personal sovereignty. And yet, millions of Americans-including author Deborah Plant's brother, whose life sentence at Angola Prison reveals a shocking current parallel to her academic work...

"In 1968, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer called for Americans to "wake up" if they wanted to "make democracy a reality." Today, as Black communities continue to face challenges built on centuries of discrimination, her plea is increasingly urgent.In this exhilarating anthology of original essays, Keisha N. Blain brings together the voices of major progressive Black women politicians, grassroots activists, and intellectuals to offer critical...

"An award-winning journalist, TV political analyst, and creator of TheGrio documentary, Afro-Latinx Revolution: Puerto Rico, recounts her experiences as an African American and Puerto Rican woman, reflecting on her improbable journey from Syracuse to Harvard, hedge fund boardrooms to newsrooms, and beyond in pursuit of America's infinite opportunities. Part inspiring memoir, part cultural analysis, with remarkable self-determination, Natasha S. Alford...