New African American Books: History & Current Events
August 20, 2010
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NYU Press
Available May 5, 2010 in Paperback
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Los Angeles is well-known as a temperate paradise with expansive beaches and mountain vistas, a booming luxury housing market, and the home of glamorous Hollywood. During the first half of the twentieth century, Los Angeles was also seen as a mecca for both African Americans and a steady stream of migrants from around the country and the world, transforming Los Angeles into one of the world’s most diverse cities. The city has become a multicultural maze in which many now fear that the political clout of the region’s large black population has been lost. Nonetheless, the dream of a better life lives on for black Angelenos today, despite the harsh social and economic conditions many confront.
Black Los Angeles is the culmination of a groundbreaking research project from the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA that presents an in-depth analysis of the historical and contemporary contours of black life in Los Angeles. Based on innovative research, the original essays are multi-disciplinary in approach and comprehensive in scope, connecting the dots between the city’s racial past, present, and future. Through historical and contemporary anecdotes, oral histories, maps, photographs, illustrations, and demographic data, we see that Black Los Angeles is and has always been a space of profound contradictions. Just as Los Angeles has come to symbolize the complexities of the early twenty-first-century city, so too has Black Los Angeles come to embody the complex realities of race in so-called “colorblind” times.
Contributors: Melina Abdullah, Alex Alonso, Dionne Bennett, Joshua Bloom, Edna Bonacich, Scot Brown, Reginald Chapple, Lola Smallwood Cuevas, Andrew Deener, Regina Freer, Jooyoung Lee, Mignon R. Moore, Lanita Morris, Neva Pemberton, Steven C. Pitts, Carrie Petrucci, Gwendelyn Rivera, Paul Robinson, M. Belinda Tucker, Paul Von Blum, Mary Weaver, Sonya Winton, and Nancy Wang Yuen.
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August 19, 2010
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The Warmth of Other Suns:
The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Random House
Available September 7, 2010 in Hardcover
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In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.
With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.
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August 1, 2010
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Celebra Hardcover
Available November 2, 2010 in Hardcover
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An intimate look behind the CNN journalist’s most compelling reporting moments and how it has shaped her perspective on America’s future.
“Story is our medium. It’s how we connect emotionally with our viewers. And it’s how we make sense of our world…When we talk about a ‘big story,’ we’re really talking about what resonates with people, what matters to them…And I think when it comes to our national narrative, what we need to realize is that we’re all contributing to the story, that we can affect where this country is going.”
From top CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien comes a highly personal look at her biggest reporting moments from Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami in Southeast Asia, the devastating Haiti earthquake to the historic elections and high profile interviews with everyday Americans. Drawing on her own unique background and consciousness as well as her experiences as a journalist at the front lines of the most provocative issues in today’s society-and particularly from her work as host of the acclaimed series Black in America and Latino in America-O’Brien offers her candid, clear-eyed take on where we are as a country and where we’re going.
What emerges is both an inspiring message of hope and a glimpse into the heart and soul of one of America’s most straight-talking reporters.
The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities
by Soledad O’Brien with Rose Marie Arce
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July 29, 2010
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Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture by Thomas Chatterton Williams
Penguin Press HC
Available April 29, 2010 in Hardcover
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A pitch-perfect account of how hip-hop culture drew in the author and how his father drew him out again-with love, perseverance, and fifteen thousand books.
Into Williams’s childhood home-a one-story ranch house-his father crammed more books than the local library could hold. “Pappy” used some of these volumes to run an academic prep service; the rest he used in his unending pursuit of wisdom. His son’s pursuits were quite different-”money, hoes, and clothes.” The teenage Williams wore Medusa- faced Versace sunglasses and a hefty gold medallion, dumbed down and thugged up his speech, and did whatever else he could to fit into the intoxicating hip-hop culture that surrounded him. Like all his friends, he knew exactly where he was the day Biggie Smalls died, he could recite the lyrics to any Nas or Tupac song, and he kept his woman in line, with force if necessary.
But Pappy, who grew up in the segregated South and hid in closets so he could read Aesop and Plato, had a different destiny in mind for his son. For years, Williams managed to juggle two disparate lifestyles- “keeping it real” in his friends’ eyes and studying for the SATs under his father’s strict tutelage. As college approached and the stakes of the thug lifestyle escalated, the revolving door between Williams’s street life and home life threatened to spin out of control. Ultimately, Williams would have to decide between hip-hop and his future. Would he choose “street dreams” or a radically different dream- the one Martin Luther King spoke of or the one Pappy held out to him now?
Williams is the first of his generation to measure the seductive power of hip-hop against its restrictive worldview, which ultimately leaves those who live it powerless. Losing My Cool portrays the allure and the danger of hip-hop culture like no book has before. Even more remarkably, Williams evokes the subtle salvation that literature offers and recounts with breathtaking clarity a burgeoning bond between father and son.
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July 20, 2010
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The Torment of Barack Obama! Under slavery, “Nigger breakers” had the job of destroying the spirits of tough black men by whatever means necessary. At age 15, Frederick Douglass was sold to Edward Covey who had the mandate to break him. Ishmael Reed makes the case that President Barack Obama is being assailed by 20th century descendants of Covey. In a series of essays written during the 2008 primaries and after Obama’s election, he shows how both Obama’s opponents and some supposed allies use modern reincarnations of those same ugly demons to break him. What’s more, statements and alliances he made during the campaign and in office have made him easy prey.
Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers
by Ishmael Reed
Baraka Books
Available September 1, 2010 in Paperback
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July 18, 2010
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The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America Charles Ogletree
Palgrave Macmillan
Available June 22, 2010 in Hardcover
Shortly after noon on Tuesday, July 16, 2009, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., MacArthur Fellow and Harvard professor, was mistakenly arrested by Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley for attempting to break into his own home. The ensuing media firestorm ignited debate across the country. The Crowley-Gates incident was a clash of absolutes, underscoring the tension between black and white, police and civilians, and the privileged and less privileged in modern America. Charles Ogletree, one of the country’s foremost experts on civil rights, uses this incident as a lens through which to explore issues of race, class, and crime, with the goal of creating a more just legal system for all.
Working from years of research and based on his own classes and experiences with law enforcement, the author illuminates the steps needed to embark on the long journey toward racial and legal equality for all Americans.
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April 28, 2010
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
by Wes Moore
Spiegel & Grau
Available April 27, 2010 in Hardcover
Two kids with the same name lived in the same decaying city. One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison. Here is the story of two boys and the journey of a generation.
In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.
Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?
That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.
Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.
April 25, 2010
Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin
by Hampton Sides
Doubleday
Available 04/27/10 in Hardcover
From the acclaimed bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder, a taut, intense narrative about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history.
On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man — whose real name was James Earl Ray — drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace’s racist presidential campaign.
On February 1, 1968, two Memphis garbage men were crushed to death in their hydraulic truck, provoking the exclusively African American workforce to go on strike. Hoping to resuscitate his faltering crusade, King joined the sanitation workers’ cause, but their march down Beale Street, the historic avenue of the blues, turned violent. Humiliated, King fatefully vowed to return to Memphis in April.
With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel when the drifter catches up with his prey. Against the backdrop of the resulting nationwide riots and the pathos of King’s funeral, Sides gives us a riveting cross-cut narrative of the assassin’s flight and the sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England — a massive manhunt ironically led by Hoover’s FBI. Magnificent in scope, drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material, this nonfiction thriller illuminates one of the darkest hours in American life — an example of how history is so often a matter of the petty bringing down the great.
April 25, 2010
Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940
(New Directions in Southern Studies)
by Amy Louise Wood
The University of North Carolina Press
Available 05/01/09 in Hardcover
Lynch mobs in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America often exacted horrifying public torture and mutilation on their victims. In Lynching and Spectacle, Amy Wood explains what it meant for white Americans to perform and witness these sadistic spectacles and what they derived from them.
Lynching, Wood argues, overlapped with a wide range of cultural practices and performances, both traditional and modern, including public executions, religious rituals, photography, and cinema. The connections between lynching and these practices encouraged the horrific violence committed and gave it social acceptability. Wood expounds on the critical role lynching spectacles played in establishing and affirming white supremacy at the turn of the century, particularly in towns and cities experiencing great social instability and change. She also shows how the national dissemination of lynching images fueled the momentum of the antilynching movement and ultimately led to the decline of lynching. By examining lynching spectacles alongside both traditional and modern practices and within both local and national contexts, Wood reconfigures our understanding of lynching’s relationship to modern life.
April 11, 2010
The top-selling books about Michelle Obama published in 2010 (as of 4/1/2010).
- Totally Toned Arms: Get Michelle Obama Arms in 21 Days by Rylan Duggan
(Wellness Central, 01/06/10, Paperback)
| Once Barack Obama joined the presidential race and attended events with wife at his side, the media, bloggers, and people everywhere started buzzing about Michelle’s toned arms–and asking how on earth she does it. Even at the Presidential Inauguration, much of the talk was about Michelle’s amazing arms. Media outlets from GMA to CNN to MSNBC have covered the story, inspiring women across the country to call their personal trainers and say, “I want Obama arms!”Certified personal trainer Rylan Duggan, creator of the successful (and pricey, at $70 each!) e-book series Go Sleeveless!, constantly gets calls from clients and reporters asking for the training secrets behind Michelle’s arms. Duggan is the expert quoted in much of this coverage, and in TOTALLY TONED ARMS, he offers his 21-day program to get those sleek and sexy arms.In this low-priced paperback, Duggan reveals the program (combining strength training and cardio) including a 7-day jumpstart maintenance plan, and essential diet secrets designed to shed fat and reveal toned muscle, plus 50-60 black and white photos throughout to illustrate. This is a simple program that anyone can do, no matter what their fitness level, at home and with little equipment. With this series of 25 easy exercises, anyone can have Obama arms– in a matter of weeks! |
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- A Game of Character: A Family Journey from Chicago’s Southside to the Ivy League and Beyond by Craig Robinson
(Gotham, 04/20/10, Hardcover)
| The eagerly anticipated inspirational memoir from Michelle Obama’s brother, celebrating the extraordinary family members and mentors who have shaped his life When he stepped into history’s spotlight at the National Democratic Convention, Craig Robinson recalls that nothing could have been more gratifying than introducing his sister, Michelle Obama, to millions of Americans. Within minutes, he won the hearts of the nation by sharing highlights of growing up in the modest Robinson household, where the two were raised by devoted parents who taught them the values of education, hard work, and the importance of reaching far beyond what even seemed possible. Those lessons of character were fundamentals in shaping Craig Robinson’s own remarkable journey: from his days playing street basketball on Chicago’s Southside, while excelling academically, to admission at Princeton University, where he was later named Ivy League Player of the Year, twice. After playing professionally in Europe, Robinson made an about-face, entering the competitive field of finance. With his MBA from the University of Chicago, his meteoric rise landed him a partnership in a promising new venture. But another dream beckoned and Craig made the unusual decision to forego the trappings of money and status in the business world in order to become a basketball coach. He soon helped transform three struggling teams – as an assistant coach at Northwestern, then as head coach at Brown and now at Oregon State University. In his first season at OSU, he navigated what was declared to be one of the nation’s best single season turnarounds. In A Game of Character, Robinson takes readers behind the scenes to meet his most important influences in his understanding of the winning traits that are part of his playbook for success. Central to his story are his parents, Marian and Fraser, two indefatigable individuals who showed their children how to believe in themselves and live their lives with conviction through love, discipline and respect. With insights into this exemplary family, we relive memories of how Marian sacrificed a career to be a full-time mom, how Fraser got up and went to work every day while confronting the challenges of multiple sclerosis, how Craig and Michelle strengthened their bond as they journeyed out of the Southside to Princeton University and eventually, the national stage. Heartwarming, inspiring, and even transformational, A Game of Character comes just at the right time in an era of change, reminding readers of our opportunity to work together and embrace the character of our nation, to make a difference in the lives of others and to pave the way for the next generation. |
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- Michelle Obama: In Her Own Words by Michelle Obama
(CreateSpace, 02/18/10, Paperback)
| A complete documentary collection of all Remarks and Speeches held by Michelle Obama within one year (since she became First Lady of the United States.) All 65 remarks were released by the Office of the First Lady, an entity of the White House Administration, and published by The White House. “A Must Read for Everyone interested in Social Issues”, and a Must Read for Everyone who wants to learn more about the First Lady, her thoughts, her opinion, and her views. 1 year serving as the First Lady. 65 remarks. 266 pages. Carefully collected, formatted and re-published by SoHo Books. |
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- Michelle Obama: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies) by Alma Halbert Bond
(Greenwood, 07/31/10, Hardcover)
| Independent and supportive, elegant and down-to-earth, an accomplished professional and family anchor as her husband rose to the presidency, Michelle Obama is to many the consummate life partner in politics and the epitome of the 21st-century working mom. Michelle Obama: A Biography offers an unprecedented look at one of the most captivating women of our time, one who is sure to add her own distinctive legacy to the tradition of presidential wives.Ranging across the full arc of Michelle Obama’s life, this revealing biography tells the story of her family background — her great-great-grandfather was a slave — her modest Chicago upbringing, her education and well-established legal career, and her relationship with her husband before, during, and after he reached the pinnacle of American politics. |
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- Michelle Obama: Primera dama y primera mama /Michelle Obama: Mom in Chief (Spanish Edition) by Roberta Edwards
(Altea, 02/28/10, Paperback)
Michelle Obama never considered a life in politics and now she is our new First Lady. From the bestselling duo of Barack Obama: United States President comes this easy to read biography filled with photos of the entire Obama family. It charts Michelle s life from her childhood in Chicago, her years at Princeton and Harvard Law, and her historic journey to the White House.
Spanish Description: Michelle Obama nunca penso que se dedicaria a la politica, hoy en dia es la primera dama de los Estados Unidos de America! Este tomo, parte del exitoso duo Barack Obama: United States President, nos presenta una amena biografia del historico trayecto de Michelle Obama, desde su infancia en Chicago y su epoca de estudiante en Princeton y la escuela de leyes de Harvard, hasta su llegada a la Casa Blanca. El texto es facil de leer y cuenta con fotografias de la familia Obama. |
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- First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama by Betty Caroli
(Oxford University Press, USA, 07/15/10, Paperback)
| Betty Boyd Caroli’s engrossing and informative First Ladies is both a captivating read and an essential resource for anyone interested in the role of America’s First Ladies. This expanded and updated fourth edition includes Laura Bush’s tenure, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid, and an in-depth look at Michelle Obama, one of the most charismatic and appealing First Ladies in recent history. Covering all forty-one women from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama and including the daughters, daughters-in-law, and sisters of presidents who sometimes served as First Ladies, Caroli explores each woman’s background, marriage, and accomplishments and failures in office. This remarkably diverse lot included Abigail Adams, whose “remember the ladies” became a twentieth-century feminist refrain; Jane Pierce, who prayed her husband would lose the election; Helen Taft, who insisted on living in the White House, although her husband would have preferred a judgeship; Eleanor Roosevelt, who epitomized the politically involved First Lady; and Pat Nixon, who perfected what some have called “the robot image.” They ranged in age from early 20s to late 60s; some received superb educations for their time, while others had little or no schooling. Including the courageous and adventurous, the emotionally unstable, the ambitious, and the reserved, these women often did not fit the traditional expectations of a presidential helpmate. Here then is an engaging portrait of how each First Lady changed the role and how the role changed in response to American culture. These women left remarkably complete records, and their stories offer us a window through which to view not only this particular sorority of women, but also American women in general. “Impressive…Caroli’s profiles and observations of American first ladies and their relationship to the media are intelligent and perceptive.” –Philadelphia Inquirer |
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- First Lady Michelle Obama: REMARKS! by Michelle Obama
(CreateSpace, 02/18/10, Paperback)
| First Lady Michelle Obama – REMARKS! is a complete documentary collection of all Remarks and Speeches held by Michelle Obama within one year (since she became First Lady of the United States.) All 63 remarks were released by the Office of the First Lady, an entity of the White House Administration, and published by The White House. “A Must Read for Everyone interested in Social Issues”, and a Must Read for Everyone who wants to learn more about the First Lady, her thoughts, her opinion, and her views. 1 year serving as the First Lady. 65 remarks. 266 pages. Carefully collected, formatted and re-published by SoHo Books. |
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- Michelle Obama: The Making of a First Lady by Dawne Allette
(Tamarind, 02/23/10, Paperback)
| I want you to know that we have very much in common. For nothing in my life would have predicted that I would be standing here as First Lady of the United States of America…’ When Michelle Obama spoke these words in a London school, the effect on the students was overwhelming. Her inspiring words, approachable nature and regal style make Michelle a much-loved public figure and a role model in her own right. A child of working class parents in Chicago, Michelle went on to become an Ivy League graduate, a lawyer, and an international icon as wife to President Barack Obama. Her life is a tale of extraordinary achievement in a changing society. |
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- Essence First Lady Michelle Obama: An Extraordinary Woman of Substance, Service & Style by Editors of Essence Magazine
(Essence, 10/26/10, Hardcover)
| Through her commitment to her family and community, professional pursuits and personal passions, First Lady Michelle Obama is redefining possibilities and opportunities for women in this century. ESSENCE chronicled Mrs. Obama before she ventured into the national spotlight. Now, in First Lady Michelle Obama: An Extraordinary Woman of Substance, Service & Style, ESSENCE editors will recapture those early moments and illuminate her current role as First Lady today in a special commemorative book that charts one of the most incredible personal journeys in American history. First Lady Michelle Obama: An Extraordinary Woman of Substance, Service & Style, will document Mrs. Obama’s life from the South Side of Chicago to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This lavishly illustrated title will explore the social, cultural, and political impact of the First Lady’s education, health, and military family initiatives; her national and international causes and campaigns; and her broad fashion sense that connects with both Seventh Avenue and Main Street. Like the best-sellers The Obamas in the White House: Reflections on Family, Faith and Leadership, and The Obamas: Portrait of America’s New First Family, the new book from ESSENCE editors will combine stunning images of the First Lady in and out of the White House, with the President and her family, along with memorable quotes she’s provided exclusively to the magazine and from her most popular speeches and addresses. |
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- Michelle Obama (Basic Biographies) by Susan Kesselring
(Childs World, 2010-01, Library Binding)
- Michelle Obama: Our First Lady (Making History: the Obamas) by Amelie Von Zumbusch
(PowerKids Press, 01/15/10, Paperback)
- Michelle Obama (People in the News) by Michael V. Uschan
(Lucent Books, 05/07/10, Library Binding)
- Michelle Obama (Pebble Plus) by Lucia Raatma
(, 2010-08, School & Library Binding)
