african american authors

"Jason Reynolds's interest in hip-hop and poetry turned into a successful writing career. Learn about the New York Times best-selling author who has received a Newbery Honor, an NAACP Image Award, and many other accolades"--Provided by publisher.

"This first-ever picture book biography of the legendary writer and activist introduces readers to this passionate Black man who discovered his true power in the written word, which opened the world to him as he used his voice fearlessly"--Provided by publisher.

Kwame Alexander offers a memoir with poetry, letters, recipes and other personal artifacts. He provides an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with.

In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black and Queer ? and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety. Interspersed with personal narrative, powerful poetry, and illustrations by award-winning illustrator Charly Palmer, Flamboyants looks to the past for understanding as to how Black and Queer culture has defined the present and will continue to impact the future.

"Illuminates the lesser-known history of Victor Hugo Green, a Black postal worker from Harlem in the 1930s, who created The Green Book, a guide for African Americans to stay safe while traveling around the U.S. during the era of segregation"--Provided by publisher.

"Drawn from three decades of [Hurston's] work, this anthology showcases her development as a writer, from her early pieces expounding on the beauty and precision of African American art to some of her final published works, covering the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing a white doctor. Among the selections are Hurston's well-known works such as 'How It Feels to be Colored Me' and 'My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience.' The essays in this essential collection are grouped thematically and cover a panoply of topics, including politics, race and gender, and folkloric study from the height of the Harlem Renaissance to the early years of the Civil Rights movement"--Provided by publisher.

"At nine-years-old, D. Watkins has three concerns in life: picking his dad's lotto numbers, keeping his Nikes free of creases, and being a man. Directly in his periphery is east Baltimore, a poverty-stricken city battling the height of a crack epidemic just hours from the nation's capital. Watkins, like many boys around him, is thrust out of childhood and into a world where manhood means surviving by slinging crack on street corners and finding himself on the wrong side of pistols. For thirty years, Watkins is forced safeguard every moment of joy he experiences, or risk losing himself entirely. Now, for the first time, Watkins harnesses these moments to tell the story of how he matured into the D. Watkins we know today-beloved author, college professor, editor-at-large of Salon.com, and devoted husband and father. Black Boy Smile lays bare Watkins' relationship with his father and brotherhoods with boys around him. He shares candid recollections of early assaults on his body and mind and how he coped through stoic silence disguised as manhood. His harrowing pursuit for redemption, written in his signature street style, pinpoints how generational hardship, left raw and unnurtured, breeds toxic masculinity. Watkins discovers a love for books, is admitted to two graduate programs, meets with his future wife-an attorney-, and finds true freedom in fatherhood. Equally moving and liberating, Black Boy Smile is D. Watkins' love letter to Black boys in concrete cities, a daring testimony that brings to life the contradictions, fears, and hopes of boys hurdling headfirst into adulthood. Black Boy Smile is a story that proves that when we acknowledge the fallacies of our past, we can uncover the path toward self-discovery. Black Boy Smile is the story of a Black boy who healed"--.

"[Saeed] Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears"--Provided by publisher.