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,...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

Rapper, activist, and hip-hop rebel, Sister Souljah possesses the most passionate and articulate voice to emerge from the projects. Now she uses that voice to deliver what is at once a fiercely candid autobiography and a survival manu...

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...

This American classic has been corrected from the original manuscripts and indexed, featuring historic photographs and an extensive biographical afterword.

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...

In Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder gives us the story of one man's inspiring American journey and of the ordinary people who helped him, providing brilliant testament to the power of second chances. Deo arrives in the United St...

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...

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...

"An instant classic.... With echoes of Scout Finch, the feisty Menuchah guides readers on an unforgettable journey." --Leah Vincent, author of Cut Me Loose.In this tender and hilarious memoir of an ultraorthodox girlhood,...

In 1967, the black boxer Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter and a young acquaintance, John Artis, were wrongly convicted of triple murder by an all-white jury in Paterson, New Jersey. Over the next decade, Carter gradually amassed convincing ev...

This classic memoir of slave life, written by a highly-literate North Carolina slave, was first published at the beginning of the Civil War when Jacobs had escaped to the North and begun campaigning for abolition. Her narrative focuse...

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...

A charming, informative personal history that blends the anecdotal, historical, and downright unusual The child of Italian immigrants and an award-winning scholar of Italian literature, Joseph Luzzi straddles these two perspectives in...

A disapora spread over five continents, Gypsies have yet to enter the American public consciousness, yet they have been arriving since the late sixteenth century. Columbus brought several, forcibly transported to the Colonies, and man...

For a world of devoted readers, a much-awaited new volume of absorbing stories and inspirational wisdom from one of our best-loved writers.Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals ...

Traces the life and career of the radio diva and VH1 Fashion Awards commentator, describing her childhood in a conservative and predominantly white community, college education, efforts to succeed in the male-dominated radio industry,...

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.

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...

If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malxolm X. His AUTOBIOGRAPHY is now an established classic of modern America, a book that expresses like...

For more than forty years Miles Davis has been in the front rank of American music. Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographi...

You've gotta learn to defend yourself. Never let your enemy know what you are feeling. -- The soldier assigned to protect Melba Please, God, let me learn how to stop being a warrior. Sometimes I just need to be a girl. -- Melba's d...

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....

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 ...