55 Books Published by 1517 Media on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

"If I do not write, who will? What I am living with here does not allow me to wait until others fully wake up to the serious harm prisons cause."

Falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, Lacino Hamilton sent thousands of letters during his incarceration. After twenty-six years, including eleven years in solitary confinement, and a years-long campaign of public and political pressure, Hamilton was exonerated and released on September 30, 2020. The letters he wrote during his incarceration, advocating for his innocence—literally writing for his life—made him a leading voice on issues of abolition, imprisonment, and justice. Despite fierce resistance and retaliation from prison officials, he maintained correspondence with family and friends, as well as university professors and activists.

Tireless, empathetic, and unflinching, Hamilton’s voice throughout these letters shines with immediacy. We must engage all people in recognizing the terrible costs of maintaining the US system of justice, he writes. In his passionate critiques of the prison-industrial complex, his emotional appeals to friends and family, and his fierce and unflagging defense of his own innocence, Hamilton exposes the oppressive, humiliating, and destructive reality of our justice system. From divestment in cities and policing policies to the everyday violence of imprisonment and its attempts to obliterate personhood in favor of obedience, these letters offer an incisive critique of our criminal justice system. We also feel Hamilton’s deep generosity of spirit as he counsels others affected by this terrible system and lauds the work of those working on the outside for reform. With his voice, we sense something unexpected and profound: hope for a reimagining of our systems—a humanity-affirming model of justice.

Say it with her now: “I love my people ”

In rhythmic prowess, Kim Singleton recounts the beauty and legacy of Black people who are “too many to name, from the corners of obscurity, to the highest of fame.”

I Love My People is a poetic tribute to African American history-makers and culture-shakers, complete with nostalgic photography and vibrant, playful illustration. In the vein of Gill Scott-Heron’s poetry of the 1970s, author Kim Singleton invites us into call-and-response and brings a refreshing cadence to the page that captures every decade of Black joy in all its resilient, diverse, and excellent splendor.

“We were told that our bodies weren’t built for this art. Rhythmic movement we mastered flowing straight from the heart.”

Singleton shines a light on virtually every facet of Black community life, and unapologetically declares her people good—from the street corner to the White House and everything in between.

“In 1827, Freedom’s Journal was born. Black content, Black operated, Black staff, Black owned.”

By the end, you’ll be chanting Singleton’s anthem, too: “I LOVE MY PEOPLE ”

The achievement of our humanity comes about only through immersion in concrete, visceral, embodied relational experience; yet for many human beings that achievement is stamped by the struggle against oppression in history, society, and religion.

In this incisive and important work, distinguished theologian M. Shawn Copeland demonstrates with rare insight and conviction how black women’s historical experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological ideas about being human. Copeland argues that race, embodiment, and relations of power reframe not only theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, Eucharist, and Christ. Enfleshing Freedom is a work of deep moral seriousness, rigorous speculative skill, and sharp theological reasoning. This new edition incorporates recent theological, philosophical, historical, political, and sociological scholarship; engages with current social movements like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo; and presents a new chapter on the body.

An overlooked background figure in the grand narrative of the apostle Paul, Agabus (Acts 21:10-14) bursts from the epistles with an audacious prophecy. In a world where everyone wants to be the main character, Agabus remains a minor one with powerful relevance for today. Gleaning from Agabus’s story, we can bravely be our authentic selves, honoring what God has assigned us to do, no matter how small or insignificant it seems.

Exploring Agabus conveys the countercultural message that an anonymous life of authenticity and service is more important than the approval of others or even fame. Popular pastor and speaker Michael Walrond, in Exploring Agabus, dares us to be our authentic selves and to fulfill our callings in joyful anonymity. Walrond shares a painful personal loss that taught him this lesson. Based on this minor prophet’s role in the formation of the early church and his significance as represented by feast days that continue even now, we can release the societal need for “likes” and “follows” and instead enter a journey of self-discovery. There are blessings in anonymity; we can live quietly and find our way home to ourselves and to God.

A tragedy is unfolding all around us and is receiving well overdue attention. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy than their white peers. But Dr. Monique Rainford is working to better understand these disparities and do something about them.

Pregnant While Black is a hopeful exploration of the issues pregnant Black women face in America. Within these pages, Dr. Rainford draws on over twenty years of experience working in obstetrics and gynecology to offer a primer on Black pregnancies and how to better care for them. She shares the successes and testimonies of Black women who have struggled during pregnancy and childbirth, anchoring the stories of these women with carefully researched facts. Despite medical advances over the last twenty years, for black women, the overwhelming dangers of carrying and delivering children remain and it only seems to be getting worse.

In Pregnant While Black, Rainford begins the work of “repairing the damage of the past” with an examination of the conditions that plague Black pregnancies. This important book carries the hopes and dreams of a generation looking to effect change, here and now.

Every day is different. Some days everything goes right—you’re in the groove and feeling like yourself.

But some days, it’s a lot harder to find happy because everything is just blah. Sometimes everything that should be fun just feels … flat. A young boy is having one of those dreary days, and nothing seems to help. But after trying his grandmother’s way to shake the blues also fails, he discovers that happiness is easiest to find when you’re not looking.

This picture book gently reminds readers that it’s normal to have happy and sad days and normalizes speaking about emotions and seeking help. Heartfelt and hopeful, the story models emotional intelligence and self-awareness for readers of all ages.

Climate change. Two words that are quickly becoming the clarion call to action in the twenty-first century. It is a voter issue, an economy driver, and a defining dynamic for the foreseeable future. Yet, in Black communities, climate change is seen as less urgent when compared to other pressing issues, including police brutality, gun violence, job security, food insecurity, and the blatant racism faced daily around the country.

However, with Black Americans disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change—making up 13 percent of the US population but breathing 40 percent dirtier air and being twice as likely to be hospitalized or die from climate-related health problems than white counterparts—climate change is a central issue of racial justice and affects every aspect of life for Black communities.

In Before the Streetlights Come On, climate activist Heather McTeer Toney insists that those most affected by climate change are best suited to lead the movement for climate justice. McTeer Toney brings her background in politics, community advocacy, and leadership in environmental justice to this revolutionary exploration of why and how Black Americans are uniquely qualified to lead national and global conversations around systems of racial disparity and solutions to the climate crisis. As our country delves deeper into solutions for systemic racism and past injustices, she argues, the environmental movement must shift direction and leadership toward those most affected and most affecting change: Black communities.

Grounded on a passionate belief in the integrative and unifying function of art that further incarnates God’s hospitality, the book argues that the projects of Chicago artist Theaster Gates are theological sites, places to encounter God and his truth concerning place, people, and things. By exploring Gates’ practices, attention is drawn to corollary actions of God’s care, reconciliation, and vivification of creation and culture. Hence, Gates’ hospitality points to God’s hospitality.

These qualities then become the framework of a theology of hospitality, which provides a robust paradigm for Christian discipleship and mission. The study gathers the work of theologians, artists, as well as other scholars from a variety of discourses and various traditions to advocate holistic stewardship of God’s creation. These diverse voices comprise a rich conversation of theology and aesthetics to exhibit the way art can critique and resist various modes of Western detachment.

Indeed, hospitality is paramount to this end, especially amid rising hostilities concerning land management. Gates’ art programs defy the denigration of place, people, and things by engendering practices that validate creation and culture. By assessing Gates’ work, a type of faith is exhibited that stretches beyond theological assertions to also comprise reviving embodied transactions.

I knew something was wrong when Mama called me close.

She held my hand and told me you would not be coming home with us.

She said you went to be with the stars instead.

Written as a letter to his unborn baby sibling, Dear Star Baby shares how a little boy processes the grief he and his family experience after a miscarriage. He tells the baby all about how they were preparing their home to welcome them and the things he was looking forward to doing together. He processes his wonders, wishes, and sadness after this tremendous loss. Dad says their Star Baby feels far away. Mom says their Star Baby is always in her heart. The little boy imagines his baby sibling singing and twinkling in the night sky as he sleeps.

Poignant and sensitively told, this story will help families who have lost of a baby to miscarriage or stillbirth grieve and move forward together.

Juma is excited to go fishing with his grandfather, Babu Ali. But when they get to the beach, they find the sand covered in plastic pollution—flip-flops, plastic straws, toothbrushes, bottles, and shopping bags. One of the flip-flops floating in on a wave looks like a boat. That gives Juma and Babu Ali an idea.

Based on the true story of the Kenyan dhow boat Flipflopi, this inspirational tale demonstrates how innovation, art, and determination can transform plastic pollution into something useful. In 2017, 30,000 flip-flops and other plastic waste items, all collected from the Kenyan coast, were melted, shaped, and carved into the dhow named Flipflopi. Weighing in at 7 tons, this boat is a testament to what can happen when awareness is turned into action.

When Lenny Duncan wrote Dear Church in 2018, they had a vision for a church that could and would reform itself into something new. After four years, a pandemic, a global uprising for racial equity, and what Duncan describes as “the death of the republic” on January 6, 2021, we now live in a vastly different landscape than the one Duncan wrote about previously.

Lenny now contends that we no longer need a reformation—we need a revolution. Dear Revolutionaries is a handbook for a new generation that sees, clear-eyed, the series of catastrophes we have inherited, the road that lies ahead, and the improbability of victory, yet are still ready to build the tomorrow we so desperately want to be born in this world. The institutional church is concerned with reviving itself. God is concerned with reviving the community within and beyond the walls of the church. Dear Revolutionaries is a book for the community who is ready to rise up and build something new from the ashes.

Casting a vision for a new spiritual future led by the people, Dear Revolutionaries offers a series of peace-building practices that will give readers the tools to build, guide, and care for spiritual community in a world beyond the church.

Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter and leader in the Underground Railroad, is one of the most significant figures in US history. Her courage and determination in bringing enslaved people to freedom have established her as an icon of the abolitionist movement. But behind the history of the heroine called "Moses" was a woman of deep faith.

In Walking the Way of Harriet Tubman, Therese Taylor-Stinson introduces Harriet, a woman born into slavery whose unwavering faith in God and practices in prayer and contemplation carried her through insufferable abuse and hardship. Her deep spirituality rooted in mysticism, Christianity, and African indigenous beliefs sustained her escape from slavery and led her to an internal liberation, giving her the strength and purpose to lead others on the road to freedom.

Harriet’s lived spirituality illuminates a profound path forward for those of us in the fight for justice and equity—a freedom which Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and people of color must cultivate to be fully who we are called to be for ourselves and our communities. As the luminous significance of Harriet Tubman’s spiritual life is revealed, so too is the path to our own spiritual truth, advocacy, and racial justice as we follow in her footsteps—for Black lives and all people of color.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”—Howard Thurman

Known as the godfather of the civil rights movement, Howard Thurman served as a spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders and activists in the 1960s. Thurman championed silence, contemplation, common unity, and nonviolence as powerful dimensions of social change. But Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown didn’t learn about him during her years of spiritual-direction training. Only when a friend heard of her longing to encounter the work of Black contemplatives did she finally learn about Thurman, his mystical spirituality, and his liberating ethic.

In What Makes You Come Alive, Brown beckons readers into their own apprenticeship with Thurman. Brown walks with us through Thurman’s inimitable life and commitments as he summons us into centering down, encountering the natural world, paying attention to sacred synchronicity, unleashing inner authority, and recognizing the genius of the religion of Jesus. We learn from Thurman’s resilience in the psychologically terrorizing climate of the Jim Crow South, his encounters with Quakers and with Mahatma Gandhi, and his sense of being guided by the Spirit. Each chapter illuminates an aspect of Thurman’s work and includes reflection questions and spiritual practices.

Decades after their deaths, sages like Howard Thurman offer spiritual kinship and guidance for our contemporary life. Thurman’s spirituality enlivened an entire movement, and it can awaken us to intimacy with God and to authentic action today.

"In a world eager to promote the newest wunderkind, grandmother theology carries us two or more generations back: to the kitchens, hair salons, gardens, and church basements of older Black women who are often invisible in theological discourse but without whom the American Christian church would cease to exist."

The church mothers who raised Yolanda Pierce, dean of Howard University School of Divinity, were busily focused on her survival. In a world hostile to Black women’s bodies and spirits, they had to be. Born on a former cotton plantation and having fled the terrors of the South, Pierce’s grandmother raised her in the faith inherited from those who were enslaved. Now in paperback, In My Grandmother’s House follows Pierce as she reckons with that tradition, building an everyday womanist theology rooted in liberating scriptures, experiences in the Black church, and truths from Black women’s lives. Pierce tells stories that center the experiences of those living on the underside of history, teasing out the tensions of race, spirituality, trauma, freedom, resistance, and memory. The paperback features a new readers’ guide, written by the author, that is useful for individual reflection and group discussion.

A grandmother’s theology carries wisdom strong enough for future generations. The Divine has been showing up at the kitchen tables of Black women for a long time. It’s time to get to know that God.

Find spiritual insight for developing courage and meeting life’s broken-open, pulled-apart times for anyone seeking hope.

Daily we are asked to move toward bravery, to stretch in the direction of goodness, kindness, forgiveness, patience, and vulnerability. Yet life’s tender fragility, fear, anxiety, and our own practiced self-sabotage can derail us from growing and thriving, leaving us fractured and afraid.

Ordained Buddhist teacher and Quaker Valerie Brown invites us into the heart of compassion, insight, and courage. Filled with Quaker wisdom, mindfulness meditation practices, and portraits of real people living out simple yet life-affirming bravery, Hope Leans Forward is a guidebook for all of us who are on journeys of self-transformation, self-discovery, and spiritual discernment. Centering small, everyday acts of bravery with diverse stories from marginalized communities, Brown’s unique perspective as a Black Buddhist Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition and her extensive leadership experience shepherd us in navigating life’s essential questions to discover true aliveness and meaning. When we focus on cultivating clarity and discernment in our purpose, we begin to understand that we are truly connected to—and that we contribute to—a larger whole.

Written through a period of profound personal loss and in the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Brown’s spiritual insight and life- and spirit-tested wisdom offers a new source for anyone seeking hope, and seeking to alleviate suffering within ourselves and our communities.

I Wish My Dad …: what a simple way to start a sentence. But those four words hold the power to heal wounds men may not even know they carry.

From author, speaker, and social entrepreneur Romal Tune and his son, Jordan, comes this tour de force for fathers and sons about healing the unfinished business between them. What do sons wish they had received from their fathers? What might honest, healing conversations between fathers and sons look like?

Tune was raised mostly without a father. He and his dad connected briefly when he was a teenager, and then had no relationship for decades. After years of inner work via therapy and faith, Tune realized that neither he nor his dad possessed what they needed to live up to each other’s expectations. He began to wonder if other men also longed to have vulnerable conversations with their fathers—about good memories, about pain, and about what their relationship could still become.

So he sat down with seventeen men of diverse ages, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds for I Wish My Dad conversations. In the pages of this book, he invites us into the room as the men unpack relationships with their fathers, learn to work through emotional pain, recount moments of tenderness and care, and describe risks they took to heal and connect with their fathers. Tune also offers us strategies and prompts for initiating our own I Wish My Dad conversations. And with no pretense, he and Jordan recount their own I Wish My Dad interview, which helped them chart the way toward a transformed relationship.

I Wish My Dad helps fathers, and their sons move through the past to find deep connection in the present. The lessons in these pages will free us to have—and become—the kind of dad we wish for.

Martin Luther King Jr. said and wrote as much or more about the meaning, nature, and power of truth as any other prominent figure in the 1950s and ’60s. King was not only vastly influential as an advocate for and defender of truth; he also did more than anyone in his time to organize truth into a movement for the liberation, uplift, and empowerment of humanity, efforts that ultimately resulted in the loss of his life. Drawing on King’s published and unpublished sermons, speeches, and writings, The Arc of Truth explores King’s lifelong pilgrimage in pursuit of truth.

Lewis Baldwin explores King’s quest for truth from his inquisitive childhood to the influence of family and church, to Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, Boston University, and other academic institutions in the Northeast. Continuing on, the book follows King’s sense that he was involved in experiments of truth within the context of the struggle to liberate and empower humanity, to his understanding of the civil rights movement as unfolding truth, to his persistent challenge to America around its need to engage in a serious reckoning with truth regarding its history and heritage. Baldwin investigates King’s determination to speak truth to power, and his untiring efforts to actualize what he envisioned as the truthful ends of the beloved community through the truthful means of nonviolent direct action. King believed, taught, and demonstrated by example that truth derives from a revolution in the heart, mind, and soul before it can be translated into institutions and structures that guarantee freedom, justice, human dignity, equality of opportunity, and peace.

Martin Luther King used news cameras as a means of exposing anti-Black violence by white mobs in the 1950s and 60s. Darnella Frazier used her phone to record and post the murder of George Floyd by Derek Chauvin in May 2020. These are just two of many people who have captured images of injustice for the world to see.

The Prophetic Lens takes an important look at the use of the video camera as an indispensable prophetic tool for the security of Black lives and greater possibility for racial justice. Phil Allen shows how the camera can be a catalyst for cultural change, using Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination as a framework for understanding the concept of “prophetic.” Chronicling the use of the camera, particularly in film from J.D. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Allen’s historical approach reveals how effective this technology has been in achieving the goals of its respective storytellers.

The book highlights both the prophetic potential of the camera and the context of Blackness as a liminal existence amid a context dominated by whiteness.

Artist-theologian Siku, creator of The Manga Bible and artist on Judge Dredd, introduces the concept of Narrative Theology - and the specific subset of Graphic Theology - that informs his unique work and ministry. Through the visual language of superhero archetypes, legend and lore, he demonstrates a contemporary method of engaging with the Bible that resonates with how the Hebrew sages and prophets of pre-antiquity read Scripture. This one-of-a-kind contribution to the My Theology series is presented in full color as a mix of text and Siku’s dynamic artwork and comic-style illustration.

In the My Theology series, the world’s leading Christian thinkers explain some of the principal tenets of their theological beliefs in concise, pocket-sized books.

"This lyrical testament to life as ’a blind date with mercy’ will challenge and inspire." —Publishers Weekly [Starred Review]

In 1991, when he was thirteen years old, Lenny Duncan stepped out of his house in West Philadelphia, walked to the Greyhound station, and bought a ticket—the start of his great American adventure. But little did he know that his great American adventure would include a winding path through sex work and drug deals, prison, and eventually ministry and social justice activism.

Now out in paperback with a new afterword, Duncan brings us his deeply personal story about growing up Black and queer in the US. In his characteristically powerful voice, he recounts hitchhiking across the country, spending time in solitary confinement, battling for sobriety, and discovering a deep faith, examining pressing issues like poverty, mass incarceration, white supremacy, and LGBTQ inclusion through an intimate portrayal of his life’s struggles and joys. United States of Grace is a love story about America, revealing the joy and resilience of places in this country that many call "the margins" but that Lenny Duncan has called home. Fierce and incisive, Duncan challenges us and America to seek life out of death. "I was born starving for the good," he writes, "and this country can be a feast of good if we open ourselves up to it."

“Essential reading.” —Marie Claire

First and Only is a guide for every Black woman who has found herself closing the cover on other business leadership books, convinced that something is missing. We are looking for roadmaps to on-the-job success while also acknowledging the unique barriers that Black women face in the workplace: hostile work environments, being perceived as the Angry Black Woman, being asked to do more for less than our white colleagues. But we can heal, fight for our liberation, and succeed in business and in our lives. In these pages, you will find a love letter to Black women that connects our personal growth and inner healing and the fight for liberation.

Trainer and activist Jennifer R. Farmer offers practical strategies for how to thrive in workplaces that can be ambivalent about Black women’s success, as well as tips and stories from psychologists, activists, and organizational experts that equip us to lead others and heal past wounds. Learn to shed fear and embrace courage and vulnerability. Our path to success includes a commitment to self-care, spiritual growth, and a willingness to push for progress even as we fight for our own liberation. First and Only is not just about how to lean in, or how to discover the irrefutable laws of leadership. It’s also about healing so that we can sustain work for justice and equity. It’s about finding personal and social redemption—and leading other Black women to it, too.

The paperback edition includes an added preface, a discussion guide, and a Q&A with the author.

In God’s Holy Darkness, Sharei Green and Beckah Selnick deconstruct anti-Blackness in Christian theology by celebrating instances in the story of God’s people when darkness, blackness, and night are beautiful, good, and holy. From the darkness at the beginning of creation to the blackness of the sky on the day when Christ’s birth was announced to the shepherds, children learn that blackness is something to celebrate as an important element of the life of faith. Lush and vibrant illustrations by artist Nikki Faison underscore the mystery and beauty of these wondrous acts of God’s holy darkness.

Perfect for reading and anti-racist reflection in worship, as an affirmation and celebration with children, and at home with caregivers, God’s Holy Darkness is a gift to cherish.

God’s Holy Darkness is a Junior Library Guild Selection. Junior Library Guild is a curated subscription service for libraries featuring books recommended by expert librarians for building an excellent collection.

After a speech at UMass Amherst on February 28, 1984, James Baldwin was asked by a student: “You said that the liberal facade and being a liberal is not enough. Well, what is? What is necessary?” Baldwin responded, “Commitment. That is what is necessary. You mean it or you don’t.”

Taking up that challenge and drawing from Baldwin’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews, You Mean It or You Don’t will spur today’s progressives from conviction to action. It is not enough, authors Hollowell and McGhee urge us, to hold progressive views on racial justice, LGBTQ+ identity, and economic inequality. True and lasting change demands a response to Baldwin’s radical challenge for moral commitment. Called to move from dreams of justice to living it out in communities, churches, and neighborhoods, we can show that we truly mean it.

Welcome to life with James Baldwin. It is raw and challenging, inspired and embodied, passionate and fully awake.

Sarah starts her day like any other day: she eats her toast and feeds her bugs. But today isn’t a day like any other day. Today, her dad brings her to a protest to speak out against police violence against Black people. The protesters are loud, and Sarah gets scared. When Sarah spots a beautiful monarch butterfly and follows it through the crowd, she finds herself inside the no-man’s land between the line of police and protesters. In the moments that follow, Sarah is confronted with the cruelty of those who are supposed to protect her and learns what it feels like to protect and be protected.

Inspired by the protests that happened during the Minneapolis Uprising after the police killing of George Floyd, Sarah Rising provides a child’s-eye view of a protest and offers an opportunity for children to talk about why people take to the streets to protest racial injustice. Readers will gain a new appreciation for how important it is to be part of a community of people who protect each other.

Backmatter includes a note from the author about his experience growing up as a Black boy in the Twin Cities, information about the Minneapolis Uprising, and practical ways kids can get involved in activism.

Am I worthy of belonging? Am I loved just as I am? Am I safe to exist without worry?

How do Black women return to our truest selves in systems that answer “no” to these three questions?

The Enneagram is an ancient system of human development that shows us the limiting stories that keep us stuck in unhelpful patterns, and invites us into more expansive stories. For too long, conversations about the Enneagram and its personality types have been centered on and by whiteness. In The Enneagram for Black Liberation, certified Enneagram teacher and trained psychotherapist Chichi Agorom reclaims the Enneagram as a powerful tool for Black women to rediscover our wholeness and worth that existed long before systems of supremacy told us we weren't enough.

For Black women, in particular, our Enneagram personality types reflect more than just our way of being in the world; they are shaped by armor that we use to protect ourselves from pain, suffering, and shame. Breaking down each Enneagram type as a form of armor, this book offers practices to help Black women, and all who live on the margins, begin to build a sense of self separate from our mechanisms of self-protection, while working to dismantle the systems that require us to stay constantly armored up. Chichi Agorom takes readers through each of the nine Enneagram types, along with stories of Black women who identify with them, to illustrate the stories people must tell themselves in order to feel safe. In the process, Agorom seeks to inspire us to expand beyond our type patterns.

Wholeness work is justice work. Centering freedom, ease, and rest for Black women, Agorom invites each of us to claim the Enneagram as our tool for resilience-building in the continued fight for liberation.

Black girls are shaping the future.

Young Black leaders have always been at the forefront of the fight for justice, freedom, and equity. And Black girls today are stepping up and leading in bold, creative ways. In a world overrun by power and greed, now is the time to look to Black girls for lessons in resilience, leadership, tenacity, spirit, and empathy.

From Khristi Lauren Adams, author of the celebrated Parable of the Brown Girl, comes Black Girls Unbossed, which introduces readers to young Black girls leading the way and changing the world.

Eight young Black women are profiled, including the founder of a child literacy nonprofit, political activists, and a school shooting survivor who launched a political action committee to prevent gun violence.

These are the young Black women we will be reading about and studying decades from now. Like the young women who came before them, Black girls today are saying “enough is enough” and building a better world.

Black girls are leading, organizing, advocating, and creating. They are starting nonprofits. Building political coalitions. Promoting diverse literature. Fighting cancer. Improving water quality. Working to prevent gun violence.

Are we ready to learn from their leadership?

“Black women are literally at the helm of every movement,” says Tyah-Amoy Roberts, an activist and a survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. “Every push for social justice. Every push for social change. We need to take our stories into our own hands.” In Unbossed, they do.

From Khristi Lauren Adams, author of the celebrated Parable of the Brown Girl, comes Unbossed, a hopeful and riveting inquiry into the lives of eight young Black women who are agitating for change and imagining a better world. Offering practical lessons in leadership, resilience, empathy, and tenacity from a group of young leaders of color who are often neglected, Unbossed includes profiles of Jaychele Nicole Schenck, Ssanyu Lukoma, Tyah-Amoy Roberts, Grace Callwood, Hannah Lucas, Amara Ifeji, Stephanie Younger, and Kynnedy Smith.

These are the young Black women we will be reading about decades from now. Like their foremothers in earlier freedom movements, Black girls are transformational leaders. They are pacesetters, strategic thinkers, visionaries, mobilizers, activists, and more. Their stories may often be overlooked. But Black girls are leading the way.

Overcome with mental anguish, Monica A. Coleman’s great-grandfather had his two young sons pull the chair out from beneath him when he hanged himself. That noose remained tied to a rafter in the shed, where it hung above the heads of his eight children who played there for years to come.

As it had for generations before her, a heaviness hung over Monica throughout her young life. As an adult, this rising star in the academy saw career successes often fueled by the modulated highs of undiagnosed Bipolar II Disorder, as she hid deep depression that even her doctors skimmed past in disbelief. Serendipitous encounters with Black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems were countered by long nights of stark loneliness. Only as Coleman began to face her illness was she able to live honestly and faithfully in the world. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God.

Written in crackling prose, Monica’s spiritual autobiography examines her long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death in light of the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that masked her family history of mental illness for generations.

Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities—namely tobacco, rice, sugar, and cotton, among others—enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation’s founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era. Critical to this study are also examples of enslaved laborers’ role in building Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Subsequently, their labor also constructed the nation’s capital city, Federal City (later renamed Washington, DC), its seats of governance—the White House and US Capitol—and other federal sites and memorials.

Given the enslaved community’s contribution to the US, this work questions the absence of memorials on the National Mall that honor enslaved, Black-bodied people. Harrison argues that such monuments are necessary to redress the nation’s historical disregard of Black people and America’s role in their forced migration, violent subjugation, and free labor. The erection of monuments commissioned by the US government would publicly demonstrate the government’s admission of the US’s historical role in slavery and human-harm, and acknowledgment of the karmic debt owed to these first Black-bodied builders of America.

Black Hands, White House appeals to those interested in exploring how nation-building and selective memory, American patriotism and hypocrisy, racial superiority and mythmaking are embedded in US origins and monuments, as well as in other memorials throughout the transatlantic European world. Such a study is necessary, as it adds significantly to the burgeoning and in-depth conversation on racial disparity, race relations, history-making, reparations, and monument erection and removal.

Many of us have strong convictions. We want to advocate for causes we care about—but which ones? We want to work for change—but will the emotional toll lead to burn out?

Leadership coach, lawyer, photographer, and activist Karen Walrond knows that when you care deeply about the world, light can seem hard to find. But when your activism grows out of your joy—and vice versa—you begin to see light everywhere.

In The Lightmaker’s Manifesto, Walrond helps us name the skills, values, and actions that bring us joy; identify the causes that spark our empathy and concern; and then put it all together to change the world. Creative and practical exercises, including journaling, daily intention-setting, and mindful self-compassion, are complemented by lively conversations with activists and thought leaders such as Valarie Kaur, Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Zuri Adele. With stories from around the world and wisdom from those leading movements for change, Walrond beckons readers toward lives of integrity, advocacy, conviction, and joy.

By unearthing our passions and gifts, we learn how to joyfully advocate for justice, peace, and liberation. We learn how to become makers of light.

When Toni Morrison died in August 2019, she was widely remembered for her contributions to literature as an African American woman, an identity she wore proudly. Morrison was clear that she wrote from a Black, female perspective and for others who shared her identity. But just as much as she was an African American writer, Toni Morrison was a woman of faith.

Morrison filled her novels with biblical allusions, magic, folktales, and liberated women, largely because Christianity, African American folk magic, and powerful women defined her own life. She grew up with family members who could interpret dreams, predict the future, see ghosts, and go about their business. Her relatives, particularly her mother, were good storytellers, and her family’s oral tradition included ghost stories and African American folktales. But her family was also Christian. As a child, Morrison converted to Catholicism and chose a baptismal name that truly became her own—Anthony, from St. Anthony of Padua—going from Chloe to Toni. Morrison embraced both Catholicism and the occult as a child and, later, as a writer. She was deeply religious, and her spirituality included the Bible, the paranormal, and the folktales she heard as a child.

Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision unpacks this oft-ignored, but essential, element of Toni Morrison’s work—her religion—and in so doing, gives readers a deeper, richer understanding of her life and her writing. In its pages, Nadra Nittle remembers and understands Morrison for all of who she was: a writer, a Black woman, and a person of complex faith. As Nittle’s wide-ranging, deep exploration of Morrison’s oeuvre reveals, to fully understand the writing of Toni Morrison one must also understand the role of religion and spirituality in her life and literature.

America is at a pivotal crossroads. The soul of our nation is at stake and in peril. A new public narrative is needed to unite Americans around common values and to counter the increasing discord and acrimony in our politics and culture. The process of healing and creating a more perfect union in our nation must start now. The moral vision of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beloved Community, which animated and galvanized the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, provides a hopeful way forward.

In A More Perfect Union, Adam Russell Taylor, president of Sojourners, reimagines a contemporary version of the Beloved Community that will inspire and unite Americans across generations, geographic and class divides, racial and gender differences, faith traditions, and ideological leanings. In the Beloved Community, neither privilege nor punishment is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or economic status, and everyone is able to realize their full potential and thrive. Building the Beloved Community requires living out a series of commitments, such as true equality, radical welcome, transformational interdependence, E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one"), environmental stewardship, nonviolence, and economic equity. By building the Beloved Community we unify the country around a shared moral vision that transcends ideology and partisanship, tapping into our most sacred civic and religious values, enabling our nation to live up to its best ideals and realize a more perfect union.

What if the most steadfast faith you’ll ever encounter comes from a Black grandmother?

The church mothers who raised Yolanda Pierce, dean of Howard University School of Divinity, were busily focused on her survival. In a world hostile to Black women’s bodies and spirits, they had to be. Born on a former cotton plantation and having fled the terrors of the South, Pierce’s grandmother raised her in the faith inherited from those who were enslaved. Now, in the pages of In My Grandmother’s House, Pierce reckons with that tradition, building an everyday womanist theology rooted in liberating scriptures, experiences in the Black church, and truths from Black women’s lives. Pierce tells stories that center the experiences of those living on the underside of history, teasing out the tensions of race, spirituality, trauma, freedom, resistance, and memory.

A grandmother’s theology carries wisdom strong enough for future generations. The Divine has been showing up at the kitchen tables of Black women for a long time. It’s time to get to know that God.

On December 10, 1953, tragedy hit a family when Nathaniel Allen was murdered on the Sampit River by his white employer, who lured him into the meeting under the false promise of reconciliation. Allen’s death was recorded as an accidental drowning, a deliberate cover-up of the bullet hole seen by more than one witness.

Three generations later, Phil Allen Jr. revisits this harrowing story and recounts the “baton of bitterness” that this murder passed down in his family.

Through interviews, difficult conversations, and deep theological reflection, Allen takes up the challenge of racism today, naming it for what it is and working to chart a path toward reconciliation.

Open Wounds, and the documentary that accompanies it, is a transformative experience of listening and learning as a grandson looks, laments, and ultimately leads his family and his society forward toward a just and reconciled future. It’s an essential part of our national reckoning with racism and injustice.

In 1970, C. T. Vivian, a close colleague of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a member of his executive staff, sat down to take stock of the civil rights movement and the progress it had made. His assessment was that it failed and that the blame lay in the existence of myths about America.

As prophetic today as it was 50 years ago, Vivian’s voice rings out as a critique and a call to action for a society in deep need of justice and peace.

The civil rights struggle that began when Rosa Parks, a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, decided to sit in the front of a bus has deeply altered American society and the American conscience. Yet from several perspectives, that movement has resulted in failure. The Black struggle for independence is more of an uphill climb than ever. Why?

C. T. Vivian asserts that the civil rights movement failed because it was built on certain myths about America:

• The myth that Americans will do what is right as soon as they know what is right.
• The myth that legislation leads to justice.
• The myth that America is an open society where any minority group can advance.
• The myth that an ethic of love forms the core of the American conscience.

During a time when taking a trip across the nation could be dangerous for Black Americans, one man crafted a guide that changed the lives of millions.

In the late 1930s when segregation was legal and Black Americans couldn’t visit every establishment or travel everywhere they wanted to safely, a New Yorker named Victor Hugo Green decided to do something about it. Green wrote and published a guide that listed places where his fellow Black Americans could be safe in New York City. The guide sold like hot cakes! Soon customers started asking Green to make a guide to help them travel and vacation safely across the nation too. With the help of his mail carrier co-workers and the African American business community, Green’s guide allowed millions of African Americans to travel safely and enjoy traveling across the nation.

In the first picture book about the creation and distribution of The Green Book, author Keila Dawson and illustrator Alleanna Harris tell the story of the man behind it and how this travel guide opened the road for a safer, more equitable America.

Brit Barron grew up in an Evangelical megachurch in the ’90s, trying to fit neatly inside the boundaries her church and its narrow view of God had placed around her. She was boxed in by her fears, unable to realize her full potential. All that changed when she met a girl named Sami, fell in love, and chose to leave behind those narrow boundaries in favor of a fuller and more vibrant life.

In Worth It, Brit tells her story to inspire all of us to overcome our own fears—the kinds of fears that keep us from evolving beyond the narratives that have been handed to us by others. We can’t avoid or outrun these fears, but if we face them, we’ll find out that it was so worth it!

Enlightening and extremely helpful Parable of a Brown Girl deepens cultural awareness by relaying heartfelt stories from girls of color. Author, speaker, minister, and youth advocate, Khristi Lauren Adams introduces readers to the resilience and hope held within each of their diverse lives. Loaded with valuable insights from people of color, referencing Black feminist and political thought, Adams brings each story front and center with grace and wisdom.

By sharing encounters she’s had with girls of color, profound cultural and theological truths are highlighted. Adams magnifies the struggles, dreams, wisdom, and dignity of these important voices that offer deep understanding of social justice and reconciliation for all readers. Thought-provoking and inspirational, Parable of the Brown Girl is a powerful example of how God uses the narratives we most often ignore to teach us the most important lessons in life. It’s time to pay attention and learn from the societal pressures, expectations, and stereotypes often put on multi-ethnic girls. Now is the time to forge new understanding and engage in community dialogue that Adams so confidently leads us into.

Bitty brown babe, how soft your round nose
As soft as a petal one finds on a rose.

Feel the love and delight in this darling board book about bonding with a new baby in the family. Deborah LeFalle’s poetic descriptive text and Keisha Morris’ vibrant mixed-media illustrations, showcase the wonder and beauty of a beloved baby and the joy that comes with new life.

Bitty Brown Babe is the perfect gift for new parents, grandmothers, aunts, birthdays, Mother’s Day, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Grandparents Day, baby showers, and story time any day of the year.

Lenny Duncan is the unlikeliest of pastors. Formerly incarcerated, he is now a black preacher in the whitest denomination in the United States: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Shifting demographics and shrinking congregations make all the headlines, but Duncan sees something else at work—drawing a direct line between the church’s lack of diversity and the church’s lack of vitality. The problems the ELCA faces are theological, not sociological. But so are the answers.

Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan’s denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone—leaders and laity alike—to the front lines of the church’s renewal through racial equality and justice.

It is time for the church to rise up, dust itself off, and take on forces of this world that act against God: whiteness, misogyny, nationalism, homophobia, and economic injustice. Duncan gives a blueprint for the way forward and urges us to follow in the revolutionary path of Jesus.

Dear Church also features a discussion guide at the back—perfect for church groups, book clubs, and other group discussion.

Overcome with mental anguish, Monica A. Coleman’s great-grandfather had his two young sons pull the chair out from beneath him when he hanged himself. That noose remained tied to a rafter in the shed, where it hung above the heads of his eight children who played there for years to come.

As it had for generations before her, a heaviness hung over Monica throughout her young life. As an adult, this rising star in the academy saw career successes often fueled by the modulated highs of undiagnosed Bipolar II Disorder, as she hid deep depression that even her doctors skimmed past in disbelief. Serendipitous encounters with Black intellectuals like Henry Louis Gates Jr., Angela Davis, and Renita Weems were countered by long nights of stark loneliness. Only as Coleman began to face her illness was she able to live honestly and faithfully in the world. And in the process, she discovered a new and liberating vision of God.

Written in crackling prose, Monica’s spiritual autobiography examines her long dance with trauma, depression, and the threat of death in light of the legacies of slavery, war, sharecropping, poverty, and alcoholism that masked her family history of mental illness for generations.

What was Martin Luther King Jr. really like? In this groundbreaking volume, Lewis V. Baldwin answers this question by focusing on the man himself. Drawing on the testimonies of friends, family, and closest associates, this volume adds much-needed biographical background to the discussion, as Baldwin looks beyond all of the mythic, messianic, and iconic images to treat King in terms of his fundamental and vivid humanness. Special attention is devoted to Kings personal insecurities and struggles, his humility and affinity to common people, his delight in pleasant and passionate conversation, his insatiable love for the precious but ordinary things of life, his robust appetite for artfully-prepared and delicious soul food, his enduring appreciation for music and dance, his cheerful and playful attitude and spirit, his abiding interest in games and sports, and his amazing gift of wit, humor, and laughter.

King emerges here as an ordinary human being who enjoyed and celebrated life to the fullest but was never bigger than life. Here we see the personal qualities of Kingas a real, fleshly human being and also as a man shaped by his social and cultural experiences and locations. This book reclaims the man behind the mythology.

Third wave womanism is a new movement within religious studies with deep roots in the tradition of womanist religious thoughtwhile also departing from it in key ways. After a helpful and orienting introduction, this volume gathers essays from established and emerging scholars whose work is among the most lively and innovative scholarship today. The result is a lively conversation in which “to question is not to disavow; to depart is not necessarily to reject” and where questioning and departing are indications of the productive growth and expansion of an important academic and religious movement.

"If there is one book Martin Luther King, Jr. has written that people consistently tell me has changed their lives, it is Strength to Love."

So wrote Coretta Scott King. She continued: "I believe it is because this book best explains the central element of Martin Luther King, Jr.’ s philosophy of nonviolence: His belief in a divine, loving presence that binds all life. That insight, luminously conveyed in this classic text, here presented in a new and attractive edition, hints at the personal transformation at the root of social justice: " By reaching into and beyond ourselves and tapping the transcendent moral ethic of love, we shall overcome these evils."

In these short meditative and sermonic pieces, some of them composed in jails and all of them crafted during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights struggle, Dr. King articulated and espoused in a deeply personal compelling way his commitment to justice and to the intellectual, moral, and spiritual conversion that makes his work as much a blueprint today for Christian discipleship as it was then.

Individual readers, as well as church groups and students will find in this work a challenging yet energizing vision of God and redemptive love.

Being human is neither abstract nor hypothetical. It is concrete, visceral, and embodied in the everyday experience and relationships that determine who we are. In that case, argues distinguished theologian Shawn Copeland, we have much to learn from the embodied experience of Black women who, for centuries, have borne in their bodies the identities and pathologies of those in power.

With rare insight and conviction, Copeland demonstrates how Black women’s experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological theorems and pious platitudes and reveal them as a kind of mental colonization that still operates powerfully in our economic and political configurations today. Further, Copeland argues, race and embodiment and relations of power not only reframe theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, and Christ as well. In fact, she argues, our postmodern situation marked decidedly by the realities of race, conflict, the remains of colonizing myths, and the health of bodies affords an opportunity to be human (and to be the body of Christ) with new clarity and effect.

In her new book, Monica A. Coleman articulates the African American expression of making a way out of no way for today’s context of globalization, religious pluralism, and sexual diversity. Drawing on womanist religious scholarship and process thought, Coleman describes the symbiotic relationship among God, the ancestors, and humanity that helps to change the world into the just society it ought to be. Making a Way Out of No Way shows us a way of living for justice with God and proposes a communal theology that presents a dynamic way forward for black churches, African traditional religions and grassroots organizations.

After a chapter exploring black women’s religious context and presenting early examples of this work by women of the ante-bellum and post-Reconstruction eras, Ross looks at seven civil rights activists who continue this tradition. They are Ella Josephine Baker, Septima Poinsette Clark, Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Way DeLee, Clara Muhammad, Diane Nash, and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson. In a fascinating narrative style that draws on biography, social history, and original archival research, Ross shows how their moral formation and work reflect both womanist consciousness and practices of witness and testimony, both emergent from the black religious context. Ross’ major work is engrossing history and moving ethical challenge. Examining black women’s civil rights activism as religiously impelled moral practices brings a new insight to work on the movement and lifts up a paradigm for engagement in the mountainous challenges of contemporary social life.

Felder’s important work clarifies the profound differences in racial attitudes in the biblical world and now. He shows processes at work in both testaments that reflect ancient ambiguity about what we call race. He uncovers misuses of the biblical text (such as the so-called curse of Ham) in subsequent interpretation and shows how the Bible has been used to trivialize African contributions and demean and enslave black people. Felder challenges scholars and church people alike to deeper and more honest engagement with the biblical text.

Like all human bodies, the body of Christ that we call "church" needs to attend to its health or it may become ill. Renowned pastor, preacher, and teacher Frank Thomas believes that many congregations exhibit a number of dysfunctional habits in conducting business that leads to rifts, divides, and even congregational splits. Often they are caused by leadership styles that are ineffective and controlling. Thomas examines how poor congregational leadership is often the result of personality conflicts among leaders and how many key leaders both clergy and lay participate in keeping unhealthy methods alive.

Thomas's book will help lay and clergy leaders improve the health of their congregation by taking a close look at the styles of church leadership, methods of information flow, and levels of participation that exist within the body. Thomas offers a holistic solution based on a model of spiritual maturity for creating and preserving a healthy congregation.

Two brief yet powerful meditations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. defining humanity’s worth and completion relate to strides toward social justice.

Eloquent and passionate, reasoned and sensitive, this pair of meditations by the revered civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. contains the theological roots of his political and social philosophy of nonviolent activism.

In supporting reconciliation, Dr. King outlines human worth based on Scripture, encouraging the reader to know each person has worth, rational ability, and an invitation to fellowship with the Creator. In addition, Dr. King explains the three dimensions of life: length, breadth, and height; they must all be present and working harmoniously in order for life to be complete as an individual and as a community. Black and white photos from Dr. King’s life along with simple prayers from the reverend round out this short but poignant offering.

What does religion have to do with fomenting or transcending violence? In this fascinating work, Kirk-Duggan documents and analyzes religion’s involvement in violence, for good and ill, in the Bible, slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the youth scene of today.

Weems’s pioneering study explores the puzzling ways in which the Hebrew prophets’ portrayals of divine love, compassion, and conventional commitment often became associated with battery, infidelity, and the rape and mutilation of women. She wrestles with the prophets’ rhetoric and sexual metaphors to uncover Israelite social structures, asking, What is implied about women, men, and God by the language that the prophets use to describe the covenant between Yahweh and Israel? This provocative work by a leading African American biblical scholar delves deeply into issues of intimacy and power, violence and control, seduction and betrayal, and is a searing indictment of the axial points of Israelite religionits covenantal and prophetic traditionsand their authority today.

To Make the Wounded Whole describes how King’s black messianic vision propelled him into fateful encounters with other black leaders, the war in Vietnam, black theology and world liberation movements.

Contents: Preface; Map; Introduction. Part One: The Relevance of Biblical Scholarship and the Authority of the Bible. 1. Interpreting Biblical Scholarship for the Black Church Tradition. 2. The Hermeneutical Dilemma of the African American Biblical Student. 3. Reading "Her Way" Through the Struggle: African American Women and the Bible. Part Two: African American Sources for Enhancing Biblical Interpretation. 4. The Bible and African Americans: An Outline of an Interpretative History. 5 "An Ante-bellum Sermon:" A Resource for an African American Hermeneutic. Part Three: Race and Ancient Black Africa in the Bible. 6. Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives. 7. The Black Presence in the Old Testament. 8. Beyond Identification: The Use of Africans in Old Testament Poetry and Narratives. Part Four: Reinterpreting Biblical Texts. 9. Who Was Hagar? 10. The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation: "Free Slaves" and "Subordinate Women." 11. An African American Appraisal of the Philemon-Paul-Onesimus Triangle. Index of Ancient Sources. Index of Topics and Names. Contributors.

The sources of Martin Luther King, Jr., ’s phenomenal and prophetic impact on life in America and beyond have never been adequately understood. In this path-breaking volume, Lewis Baldwin traces King’s vision and activism not to his formal philosophical and theological development but directly to his roots in Southern black culture, where King spent most of his 39 years.

King’s appropriation of the Bible, Gandhi, American participatory democracy, Boston personalism, and the theologies of Reinhold Niebuhr and the Social Gospel makes sense, Baldwin argues, only against his visceral and abiding identification with black culture and the black Christian tradition. Working directly with the trove of King’s sermons, speeches, and unpublished papers, Baldwin has reconstructed the pain and joy, the defeat and triumph King experienced in his formative family relationships, in the black church, in his childhood and education, in his marriage and children, in segregated black Atlanta, and in his leadership of America’s civil rights movement.

Baldwin’s through research and engaging writing finally give us what King had but Scholars have missed: the sense of place that grounded his vision of the beloved community.