Beresford Bennett
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A father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream. On the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday, he finds himself broke, estranged from his Boston Brahmin wife and three children, and living in a friend's spare bedroom in Brooklyn. He has four days to come up with the money to keep his family afloat, and four days to make sense of his past and his future in a country where he feels preprogrammed to fail. But he has...
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Within the stoned soul picnic of Black music icons in the '60s and '70s, only one could bill himself without a blush as Moses, demanding liberation for Black men with his notions of life and self, Isaac Lee Hayes Jr...Hayes's stunning self-portraits, his obsessive pleas about love, sex, and guilt bathed in lush orchestral flights and soul-stirring bass lines, drove other soul men to libidinous license. While he thrived on soulful remakes of pop standards,...
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The seventh child of one of Richmond, Virginia's most ambitious hustlers, Seven is a talented poet and author with a true ear for the streets. In Gorilla Black, a boy with a love of Shakespeare and Langston Hughes struggles to thrive while growing up in the projects as the son of an alcoholic mother. In time, self-dubbed Gorilla Black will ascend to the top seat of a cocaine-fueled empire-and discover the truth about his beloved brother's death so...
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Hadjii remembers the trials and tribulations of youth in Don't Let My Mama Read This. From the havoc that a boy's crusty underwear can wreak on a family's reputation to the first time getting caught coming home drunk, Hadjii covers all the aspects of a "blessedly normal" childhood.
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Little black girl lost volume 3
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After his blockbuster success of Little Black Girl Lost, and Little Black Girl Lost II Keith Lee Johnson takes us back to 1950's New Orleans, into the world of betrayal, envy, lust, and murder, where everyone has ulterior motives. The past resurfaces in this third installment of the life and times of seventeen year old Johnnie Wise. Truth has its consequences and Johnnie has a lot to answer for. The innocent girl we met in the first installment of...
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Alabama, 1937. Bootlegging was Milton and Yvonne Hamilton's ticket out of poverty, prison time, and plain bad luck. Now they've moved on--to a bigger, richer pool of clientele--right in their own respectable new middle-class backyard. And their growing friendship with seemingly-perfect couple Joyce and Odell Watson is proving golden in more ways than one. As Milton soon learns, Odell is hiding an outside family and dubious business dealings. It's...
7) Race First
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A classic study of the Garvey movement, this is the most thoroughly researched book on Garvey's ideas by a historian of Black nationalism.
8) Bivouac
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When Ferron Morgan's father dies in suspicious circumstances, his trauma is exacerbated by the conflict within his family and among his father's friends over whether the death was the result of medical negligence or if it was a political assassination. Ferron grew up in awe of his father's radical political endeavors, but in later years he watched as the resurgence of the political right in the Caribbean in the 1980s robbed the man of his faith.
Ferron's...
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Victor McGlothin is the Essence best-selling author of Autumn Leaves. In The Secrets of Newberry, McGlothin crafts a stunning portrait of race relations in New Orleans circa 1955. When Hampton Bynote meets Bones Arcineaux, the two begin stealing from the rich whites of the French Quarter as a way of recovering the pride that was once taken from them. But when one burglary takes a turn for the worse, the consequences haunt the two men for years to...
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The role of men is critical when it comes to preventing sexual assault. Gordon Braxton was in his second year of college before anybody bothered to speak to him about sexual violence, despite the fact that he already knew friends and family members that had survived a sexual assault. Unfortunately, this is a common experience as many young men and boys, especially Black boys, do not have an opportunity to discuss their views on sexual violence and...
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A remarkable narrative of both chance and purpose that touches all corners of society to tell the improbable tale of one man looking for something greater A young, Black kid from a hardworking family in one of the poorest sections of Washington, DC, despite being legally blind in one eye, leaps to the pinnacle of his sport: the Hall of Fame. A rookie bank teller rises to become one of the nation's most celebrated Black business leaders. A once-reluctant...
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At 7:30 a.m. on June 16, 1944, George Junius Stinney Jr. was escorted by four guards to the death chamber. Wearing socks but no shoes, the 14-year-old Black boy walked with his Bible tucked under his arm. The guards strapped his slight, five-foot-one-inch frame into the electric chair. His small size made it difficult to affix the electrode to his right leg and the face mask, which was clearly too large, fell to the floor when the executioner flipped...
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An acclaimed chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement, Peniel Joseph presents this sweeping overview of a key component of the struggle for racial equality-the Black Power movement. This is the story of the men and women who sacrificed so much to begin a more vocal and radical push for social change in the 1960s and 1970s.
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National best-selling author Keith Lee Johnson enjoyed breakout success for his novel Little Black Girl Lost. Now Johnson introduces Nelson Kennard, a former number one NBA draft pick who blew his chance at the big time-and is about to lose the best thing that's ever happened to him, sexy school teacher Parris Stalls. Soon-to-be-dissed Nelson may have been a playa back in the day, but there's always another baller waiting in the wings.
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Essence best-selling author Keith Lee Johnson's popular series continues with this fourth book, which reaches back to unearth the roots of Johnnie Wise's family tree. On the eve of her arranged marriage in an African village, a 16-year-old girl elopes with her fiancée’s younger brother. But the lovers are captured and sold into American slavery-and the girl wonders if she'll ever see her man again.
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Essence best-selling author Keith Lee Johnson's fifth installment in his ongoing Little Black Girl Lost series picks up where the fourth book left off by continuing the diary of Josephine Baptiste. As more details about Josephine's past come to light, the African heritage of modern-day Johnnie Wise is further explained.
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Best-selling author Keith Lee Johnson returns to 1950s New Orleans for this powerful sequel to his sensationally popular Little Black Girl Lost. Teenage beauty Johnnie Wise has seen her share of hardship. Sold into prostitution at an early age, she is an accessory to a murder that sparks terrible race riots. Her boyfriend Lucas wants to give her a better life, but Johnnie has a powerful effect on men-and gangster Napoleon Bentley will stop at nothing...
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Little black girl lost volume 1
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Johnnie Wise was just fifteen years old when her mother sold her virginity to an unscrupulous white insurance man named Earl Shamus. Stunningly beautiful, with long naturally wavy black hair, she possessed the voluptuous body of a thirty-year-old woman. Her skin was the color of brown sugar. Johnnie had heard about Earl Shamus and his escapades among the poor black women in New Orleans. But what she didn't know was that Shamus had quietly made several...
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Amy Jacques Garvey worked closely with her husband, Marcus Garvey, throughout his crusade. Here she gives an insider detailed account of Garvey, Garveyism, and this nascent period of Black Nationalism. Like all great dreamers and planners, Marcus Garvey dreamed and planned ahead of his time and his peoples' ability to understand the significance of his life's work. A set of circumstances, mostly created by the world colonial powers, crushed this dreamer,...
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Carl Weber, the New York Times bestselling author of Up to No Good, will keep you on edge with this tale of three lifelong friends. . .
James Robinson and his wife have had their rough patches. But seven years into their marriage, things are better than ever. . .until James's past comes back to haunt him—with a baby in tow.
James's best friend, Brent Williams, has always had women throwing themselves at him, but it's taken...
James Robinson and his wife have had their rough patches. But seven years into their marriage, things are better than ever. . .until James's past comes back to haunt him—with a baby in tow.
James's best friend, Brent Williams, has always had women throwing themselves at him, but it's taken...