9 Books Published by 2Leaf Press on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

The fourth volume in the Trailblazers series highlights Black women’s contributions in film and television, the sciences, and journalism.

Black women have been breaking down barriers and shattering stereotypes for generations, playing a powerful role in American history. In the Trailblazers series, Gabrielle David examines the lives and careers of over four hundred brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present. Each volume provides biographical information, photographs, and a historical timeline written from the viewpoint of Black women, offering accessible reference resources.

This fourth volume of Trailblazers explores the complicated relationship that Hollywood has had with Black women actors; significant Black women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and pioneering Black women journalists. David includes actors such as Hattie McDaniel, Fredi Washington, and Nina Mae McKinney who blazed the trail for women like Pam Grier, Halle Berry, and Viola Davis. “Hidden figures” in STEM are brought to light, such as biologist Jewel Plummer Cobb, mathematician Dorothy Vaughan, roboticist Ayanna Howard, and computer scientist Timnit Gebru. In addition, profiles of publishing pioneers like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, and Nancy Hicks Maynard show how they paved the way for Carole Simpson, Yamiche Alcindor, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Jemele Hill.

The third volume in the Trailblazers series, highlights Black women’s contributions in literature, media production, business, and the military. Black women have been breaking down barriers and shattering stereotypes for generations, playing a powerful role in American history. In the Trailblazers series, Gabrielle David examines the lives and careers of over four hundred brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present. Each volume provides biographical information, photographs, and a historical timeline written from the viewpoint of Black women, offering accessible reference resources.

Volume 3 features women from the fields of literature, business, military, and film, music, and television production. It covers literary greats including Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Phillis Wheatley, and Natasha Trethewey. We learn that Black ingenuity and entrepreneurship began during slavery with women who paved the way for those like Oprah Winfrey. David explores the Black women who pursued their right to serve in the United States Armed Forces, even when they were not considered American citizens and follows notable contributions by Black women in media production.

Trailblazers by Gabrielle David is a six-volume series that examines the lives and careers of over four hundred brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present who blazed uncharted paths in every conceivable way. The lives profiled here include recognizable figures alongside some women that readers will be discovering for the first time, as well as those women who are shaping the era we live in today.

This second volume of the Trailblazersseries features women who are visual artists, women who served their country as elected officials or working in government, and composers, songwriters, and conductors. Each of these sections is preceded by an introduction, which provides insight into these women’s stories in a historical timeline. This volume includes biographical essays of eighty-five women, illuminating the significant role each have played in shaping America’s greatness, accompanied by powerful photographs that help illustrate who they are.

In Volume 2 we learn about the first nationally known Black woman artist, sculptor Edmonia Lewis, the first Black woman cartoonist Jackie Ormes, photographer Carrie Weems, and a new generation of artists such as Kara Elizabeth Walker and Tschabalala Self. We realize that before notable politicians like Lori Lightfoot and Stacey Abrams, women like Crystal Bird Fauset, Velvalea “Vel” Phillips, and Shirley Chisholm paved the way. This book also shines a light on the handful of Black women who served on presidential cabinets, like Patricia Robert Harris, Condeleeza Rice, and Loretta Lynch. And as we venture into the world of music, we celebrate classical composers like Nora Holt and Florence Beatrice Price, choral conductor Eva Jessye, highly acclaimed singer-songwriters like Valerie Simpson and Missy Elliot, conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson, award-winning film and TV composer Kathryn Bostic, and breakout songwriter rapper Brittany “Starrah” Hazzard. Their personal achievements reveal the best qualities of Black women in America.

With Trailblazers, David has created an expansive and accessible reference book that provides significant information on the histories of the movements for feminism and civil rights. The book provides a hopeful and inclusive telling of history, one in which Black women receive the same recognition as their white and male counterparts. From the foremothers who broke gender and racial barriers to the mighty women of today, Trailblazersturns a much-deserved spotlight on these powerful and inspiring role models. This book is written in accessible prose that contain personal reflections for a broad audience, and it can also serve as a vital reference guide for use in schools and libraries.

Since slavery, Black women have struggled to liberate themselves from racism and sexism. Yet despite these hurdles and under the most difficult circumstances, they managed to achieve greatness. Trailblazers shines a light on these their accomplishments, which often led to widespread cultural change. Trailblazers is a six-volume series that examines the lives and careers of over four hundred brilliant women from the eighteenth century to the present who blazed uncharted paths in every conceivable way.

Each Trailblazers volume is organized into several sections. Along with biographical information and powerful photographs, David provides a historical timeline for each section—written from the viewpoint of Black women—that maps out the significance of the featured women that follow.

Volume 1 features an assortment of sixty-five activists, dancers, and athletes. We learn about the significance of activists like Ella Baker, Pauli Murray, Rosina Tucker, and Clara Day, who represent the hundreds of unnamed women who participated in the civil rights and labor movements. We re-discover dancers Jeni Legon and Margot Webb, who are honored alongside dance legends Josephine Baker, Katherine Dunham, Janet Collins, and a new generation of dancers including Misty Copeland, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and choreographers like Camille A. Brown, and Cynthia Oliver. And then there are the Black women athletes who disrupted the world of sports, from the nearly forgotten tennis champion Ora Washington and Alice Coachman—the first to compete and win in the Olympics—to Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in Olympic history. Throughout the series, as David re-introduces many of these women into the public sphere, they are not always in predictable ways. For example, Debbie Allen makes a brief appearance in this volume, not for her acting or as a director, but rather as the dancer she initially trained to be, reminding us that Black women are multifaceted, multitalented, and complex. What binds these women together is that as they struggled on the front lines, they shook up the status quo of Black people in America. Throughout the volume, David also challenges the socially conditioned assumptions, stereotypes, and false binaries that denigrate Black women’s bodies particularly in dance and sports, including the barriers they face in how they wear their hair. In this regard, David addresses the totality of Black womanhood: physically, culturally, and politically.

With painstaking research, David has created an affordable, visually rich, and accessible reference book. From the foremothers who blazed trails and broke barriers, to the women who follow in their footsteps, Trailblazers offers powerful and inspiring role models for women and girls from all cultural backgrounds and for the intellectually curious. Trailblazers is a clarion call for recognition of the transformative work Black women have done and continue to do. Written in accessible prose that contains personal reflections for a broad audience, Trailblazers also serves as a vital reference guide for use in schools and libraries.

A Collection of Essays, Poems, and Personal Narratives

What Does It Mean To Be White In America?: Breaking the White Code of Silence, A Collection of Personal Narratives, asks just that. The first of its kind, this collection of 82 personal narratives reflects a vibrant range of stories from white Americans who speak frankly and openly about race, not only as it applies to people of color, but as it applies to themselves.

The stories cover a wide gamut of American history from contributors around the United States; from reminiscing about segregation and Jim Crow, to today’s headlines of police brutality, politics and #BlackLivesMatter. The variety in style and subject matter from people of different class and employment backgrounds have one point in common–they create an absorbing and thought-provoking collection that explores race from a very personal perspective. In the telling, not only do contributors discuss their discomfort in talking about race, they also share big and small moments in their lives that have shaped what it means to be white in America, and how it affects the way they see themselves and others. In answering the question, some may offer viewpoints one may not necessarily agree with, but nevertheless, it is clear that each contributor is committed to answering it as honestly as possible. An invaluable starting point that includes a glossary and a bibliography of suggested reading, What Does It Mean To Be White In America? is highly recommended for students, teachers and anyone else interested in seeking a deeper and richer understanding of race in America.

Branches of the Tree of Life is the first comprehensive volume of poems by Abiodun Oyewole, many of them never before published. Oyewole’s poems are powerful, often political, always lyrical and profoundly moving. Over the course of his forty year career and his long affiliation with The Last Poets, Oyewole is one of several poets credited for liberating American poetry by creating open, vocal, spontaneous, energetic and uncensored vernacular verse that paved the way for spoken word and Hip Hop. Using the spiritual, the sacred and the mystical, Oyewole often turns to the tree as a symbol of change and growth. His poetry rebranches into different directions, becoming grandeur in its proportions, and more complexly diversified in its structure. Branches of the Tree of Life is a living testament to a stunning career that confirms Abiodun Oyewole’s place at the forefront of poetic achievement. Featuring an Introduction by Betty J. Dopson.

BROKE BAROQUE is the third in a series of Broke Books by award-winning poet, Tony Medina. With razor sharp scatological whimsy, Medina’s iconic ironic existential everyman—Broke—bears witness to the plight of homelessness from his curbside porch, torching the capitalist system and its myriad societal contradictions. BROKE BAROQUE is compulsively readable and will connect with fiction and poetry lovers alike. It includes a powerful introduction by McArthur-winner Ishmael Reed who says of Medina: "He is the Poet Laureate of the Broke. Like Jean-Michel Basquiat who takes Hip Hop to another level, Medina covers some of the same territory as Hip Hop’s best. Tupac. Public Enemy. Dead Prez." — Ishmael Reed Poet, Novelist and Critic

The Collected Works of Jesus Papoleto Melendez

Hey Yo! Yo Soy! 40 Years Of Nuyorican Street Poetry: 40 Years of Nuyorican Street Poetry, A Bilingual Edition is a 386-page collection, comprised of three previously published books, Casting Long Shadows (1970), Have Your Seen Liberation (1971), and Street Poetry & Other Poems (1972), that consist of stories about growing up Puerto Rican in New York City’s El Barrio.

Melendez has long been considered one of the founders of the Nuyorican Movement and the political, intellectual and linguistic topics he approaches in his work remain extremely relevant to this day.