9 Books Published by Delta on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Everyone who’s anyone in the Harlem music scene has heard of Honeybee McColor and the famous Friday night gathers that fill her house to bursting. In the early 1960s, nowhere but "The Big House" attracts so many renowned jazz and blues musicians—and no one but Miss Honeybee attracts talented lost souls like Forestine Bent and Viola Bembrey.

The two singers come from separate worlds: one the Brooklyn projects, the other the Baptist, rural South. One has a God-given voice and the ambition to be a star, the other a more subtle gift and a handful of hazy fantasies. But both learn the destructive consequences of following their hearts. They find sanctuary together under Honeybee’s tender guidance, struggling to find the balancing point where music doesn’t overpower love.

Including a passel of characters both wildly raunchy and remarkably dignified, Andrea Smith has woven an unforgettable tale overflowing with energy, heart, and humanity.

The stark grief of a brother mourning a brother opens this novel with a stunning, unforgettable experience.  Here, in a monumental saga of love and rage, Baldwin goes back to Harlem, to the church of his groundbreaking novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, to the homosexual passion of Giovanni’s Room, and to the political fire that enflames his nonfiction work.  Here, too, the story of gospel singer Arthur Hall and his family becomes both a journey into another country of the soul and senses—and a living contemporary history of black struggle in this land.

She vowed to find a better world for her children.  Even if she had to make it herself.

A sweeping epic of contemporary history by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alex Haley, this magnificent novel weaves an unforgettable story of one family, three generations, and their search for the American dream….

She is the heart and soul of her family who, through faith and courage, drives herself, her children, and her grandchildren onward, determined to propel them to a better place. Mama Flora, born to poor sharecroppers in Tennessee, is forced to raise her children alone after the murder of her husband. But it will not be Willie, her son, who fulfills her ambitions, but Ruthana, the niece she raises as her own. Inspired by her love for the radical poet Ben, Ruthana seeks her soul in Africa even as Willie’s son and daughter embrace Black Power and drugs in their embattled coming-of-age. Throughout all the seasons of their lives, it is Mama Flora who prevails, whose quiet determination and love bring them back, as she leads her own quest for justice in tumultuous times.


From the Paperback edition.

The now-classic memoir that shocked, outraged, and ultimately changed the way America looked at the civil rights movement and the black experience.

By turns shocking and lyrical, unblinking and raw, the searingly honest memoirs of Eldridge Cleaver are a testament to his unique place in American history. Cleaver writes in Soul on Ice, "I’m perfectly aware that I’m in prison, that I’m a Negro, that I’ve been a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation." What Cleaver shows us, on the pages of this now classic autobiography, is how much he was a man.

Like the hard-hitting sounds of a Public Enemy jam, the words of the band’s lead singer, Chuck D, excite the mind and senses.  In his first book, Chuck D pours out commentary that takes on Hollywood, race, the music industry, the murders of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., drugs, and the three E’s—education, economics and enforcement.  Likening the challenge to "scaling a slick mountain on roller skates," Chuck D lets no one off the hook, putting celebrities and street kids alike on notice that the future is up for grabs…and the only way to be part of it, to be players not victims, is to work together.

As an insider’s view on Hip-Hop culture slides into intimate revelations about his own life, as lyrics from his songs bump shoulders with top ten lists like "The Greatest Rappers of All Time," Chuck D has his say with verve and electrifying energy, with anger, love and truth.  A book that brings light into darkness, Fight the Power speaks for a generation.  It is a powerful and prophetic message that America, both Black and White, urgently needs to hear.

Nightline with Chuck as the featured guest.

His rejection of celebrity and his constant community activism have made him a hero. For the past five years he’s been touring colleges and universities, delivering three hour lectures on everything from the music industry’s corruption of young talent, the history of black music from Blues to Rap, his own controversial lyrics, problems in the black community, self-empowerment, contemporary culture and current political leaders to Public Enemy’s rise to international stardom. All while maintaining his solo and Public Enemy’s recording careers.

Fight the Power examines a multitude of complex social, racial and artistic issues. In his unmistakable voice, Chuck discusses the role of heroes and role models in the black community, Hollywood’s negative images of blacks, the effect of gangsta rap, its images on the country’s youth and the war between east and west coast rappers that may have spawned the murder of Tupac Shakur, the role of athletes and entertainers in eroding and strengthening values, and other vital contemporary concerns. Candid, thoughtful, and in your face, Fight the Power, the first substantial book by a rapper, offers readers a look into the culture of hip hop and the future of Black culture. —>

Warm, feisty, and intelligent, the Delany sisters speak their mind in a book that is at once a vital historical record and a moving portrait of two remarkable women who continued to love, laugh, and embrace life after over a hundred years of living side by side. Their sharp memories show us the post-Reconstruction South and Booker T. Washington; Harlem’s Golden Age and Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson. Bessie breaks barriers to become a dentist; Sadie quietly integrates the New York City system as a high school teacher. Their extraordinary story makes an important contribution to our nation’s heritage—and an indelible impression on our lives.

Includes a foreword by Spike Lee, the screenplay for the film Poetic Justice (starring Janet Jackson), poetry by Maya Angelou, and sixteen pages of photographs from the set.

At twenty-four, John Singleton became the youngest filmmaker and only African American to ever be nominated for Best Director (and Best Screenplay) for Boyz N the Hood, his debut feature film. Only a year after receiving such sensational acclaim, Singleton returned to the Hood with Poetic Justice, a movie starring Janet Jackson and featuring the poetry of Maya Angelou.

In this vivid document of moviemaking, Premiere editor Veronica Chambers shadows Singleton from the early days of preproduction through the final editing, moving from the streets of South Central to Oakland to Big Sur and beyond. By recording the daily struggles and triumphs of the cast and crew, she captures the unique voice and vision of a singular American filmmaker.

“In Boyz N the Hood, [John Singleton] was able to capture something very real, an element in black American life, maybe all of American life—the duality of our life, the ambiguity, the schizoid nature of our life. And that is that we are loving people who become destroyers; we are destructive people who become love. Quite often, we are portrayed as things with no redeeming qualities or Martin Luther Kings with no chicanery, no cruelty. John had the courage to give life to these falsehoods.”—Maya Angelou

A fantasy novel about a middle-aged black ex-film star turned char lady, with a bizarre imaginative life. Mamie is blessed with psychic powers and has to cope with the return of her dead husband’s ghost. Previous books by this black American writer include "Sitting Pretty" and "Ask Me Now".

A political thriller about a foiled Nigerian coup.