Herron, a Jewish-American of African descent, tells the unique story of her family's history.

"Peter Bagge has defied the expectations of the comics industry by changing gears from his famous slacker hero Buddy Bradley to documenting the life and times of historical 20th century trailblazers. If Bagge had not already had a New York Times bestseller with his biography of Margaret Sanger, his newest biography, Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story, would seem to be an unfathomable pairing of author and subject. Yet through Bagge's skilled cartooning,...

"The widely beloved, uproarious, first essay collection and the basis for the upcoming FX Studios series from smart, edgy, hilarious, and unabashedly raunchy Samantha Irby. Samantha Irby exploded onto the printed page with this debut collection of essays about trying to laugh her way through failed relationships, taco feasts, bouts with Crohn's disease, and more. Every essay is crafted with the same scathing wit and poignant candor thousands of loyal...

Examines the life and accomplishments of the African American writer, performer, and teacher, as well as her impact on literature and black culture.

"Originally published forty years ago, Alice Walker's first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that remains both timely and relevant. In these thirty-six essays, Walker contemplates her own work and that of other writers, considers the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s, and writes vividly and courageously about a scarring childhood injury. Throughout, Walker explores the theories and practices...

"Dyscalculia is an exquisite and raw booklength essay that follows Camonghne Felix's journey to survey and reconfigure the pieces of a broken heart in order to rebuild one that is entirely her own. Felix uses her childhood "dyscalculia"-a disorder that makes it difficult to learn math-as a metaphor for the consequences of her miscalculations in intimacy. Dyscalculia negotiates the misalignments of perception and reality, love and harm, and the politics...

Nací en Ohio, pero las historias de Carolina del Sur corrían ya, como ríos, por mis venas. Hablan de crecer en distintos hogares, de una época que arrastra todavía los residuos de las leyes Jim Crow y del movimiento de los derechos civiles como respuesta. 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,...

Examines the life and legacy of African American poet, memoirist, and civil rights worker Maya Angelou, from her upbringing in the Depression-era South to her work with Malcolm X in Ghana to the recitation of her inaugural poem for President Bill Clinton. Includes Angelou's own words woven together with archival photographs and videos as well as interviews with Angelou's friends and family.

"One-third of Black Americans descended from slavery are related to the slave masters who bought and sold their ancestors. In other words, one-third of Black Americans descended from slavery are descended also from sexual exploitation. Dionne Ford, whose great-grandmother was the last of six children born to a Louisiana cotton broker called the Colonel and the enslaved woman he received as a wedding gift, is among them. What shapes does this kind...

In the shadow of the American Revolution, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley published a book of poetry, Poems on various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). When Wheatley's book appeared, her words would challenge Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Her words would astound many and irritate others, but one thing was clear: this young woman was extraordinary. Based on fifteen years of archival...