22 Books Published by Universal Write Publications on AALBC — Book Cover Collage

Indexicality: An Africological Method of Inquiry by Molefi Kete Asante presents a definitive methodological framework for Africology, strengthening the discipline's capacity to analyze African phenomena through a distinctly Afrocentric lens.

Building on the foundational texts Kemet, Afrocentricity, and Knowledge and the evolving contributions of Africology scholars, Asante articulates the need for research methods that reflect the discipline's own epistemological and ontological principles.

Positioning Indexicality as a methodological cornerstone, Asante offers not only a theoretical model but also clear guidance on how to implement Africological methods in research practice. He challenges dominant assumptions about objectivity, prediction, and classification, and introduces tools for engaging African agency, cultural systems, and historical meaning.

With focused instruction on the use of language, historical texts, and indigenous knowledge systems, Indexicality addresses the full arc of methodological design—from conceptual grounding to practical application. Drawing on the legacy of Yosef ben-Jochannon, Cheikh Anta Diop, and Jacob Carruthers, and building on the vision of The Little Black Book Series: Research, Methodology, Theory and Praxis, this work affirms Africology's status as a self-determined and conceptually robust field of study.

Foreword by: Christel N. Temple, Ph.D.

Discover the power and legacy of Afrocentric thought with Afrocentricity: Generations of Theory in Practice, a definitive collection edited by Dr. Aaron X. Smith. This essential text celebrates Afrocentricity’s transformative impact on African history, culture, and identity, challenging Eurocentric perspectives and revolutionizing academic fields since the 1980s.

Inspired by Dr. Molefi Kete Asante’s pioneering work, Afrocentricity offers a bold framework that re-centers African people within their own narratives. This collection brings together the insights of leading Afrocentric scholars from across the African diaspora, highlighting their contributions to fields like Africana Studies, cultural movements, and discussions on identity and liberation.

More than an academic theory, Afrocentricity is a blueprint for cultural empowerment and systemic change. Through powerful testimonials, this volume explores Afrocentricity’s influence on education, representation, and global movements for justice and unity. Ideal for scholars, educators, and all who seek to understand or teach African-centered perspectives, Afrocentricity: Generations of Theory in Practice is an inspiring call to action and a vital resource for today’s most pressing conversations on race, culture, and heritage.

Whether you’re a student of Black Studies, a cultural activist, or simply someone passionate about reclaiming African narratives, this book provides the knowledge, context, and insight to inspire change and build a more inclusive future.

Visibly Invisible: The Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus offers a groundbreaking exploration of the systemic barriers faced by Black women in the United States Congress. This incisive study places the experiences of the women of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) at the forefront, analyzing how race and gender intersect to create unique challenges within a legislative body historically dominated by White males.

Through the innovative theoretical framework of “radical imagination” the book examines how Black women fight through intersectional challenges to be effective legislators. These women are presumed incompetent and irrational because their choices as legislators do not reflect the choices of their White male counterparts. From Shirley Chisholm to Jasmine Crockett, the work unpacks legislation sponsored and co-sponsored by these women, which displays self-sacrifice and bullish sophistication.

The text debuts resolute legislative activism: Black women’s determination not to allow their intersecting oppressions to hinder the visibility and viability of their legislative agendas. This is an extension to the legislative activism practiced by the entirety of the Congressional Black Caucus. These women’s persistence is evaluated with qualitative and quantitative measures to display their unparalleled commitment to community advocacy and democracy.

Designed for political scientists, operatives, educators, and students, this work fills critical gaps in Black politics, feminist political theory, and legislative studies, offering an essential resource for courses on African American history, Black feminist thought, and American government. These Black women and their legislative effectiveness remain undermined by structural racism and sexism. Therefore, this work and its comprehensive analysis positions Black women as central figures in advancing American democracy.

Epigenomic Awareness as a Key to Black Mental Health: The Disruptive Effects of Not Knowing explores how a lack of awareness of epigenomics adversely affects the mental health of the Black community. This important work delves into the ways external factors—such as diet, toxins, anti-Black racism, and discrimination—influence gene expression and overall well-being. By examining the relationship between environmental epigenomic signals and mental health, the authors shed light on how these dynamics shape an individual’s total health profile.

Drs. Benson George Cooke and Schuyler "Sky" C. Webb investigate the emerging field of epigenetics, revealing how environmental and lifestyle factors contribute to pronounced health disparities, including elevated rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes. They explain how stress, diet, and exercise can lead to epigenetic modifications—and how these changes can potentially be reversed. The book offers clear insight into the biological mechanisms of DNA methylation, histone modification, and microRNA processes and their effects on gene expression.

This text highlights the difficulty mental health providers face in grasping the complex and far-reaching effects of transgenerational inheritance. It aims to equip scholars, researchers, and clinicians with a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of people of color, especially Black individuals. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the book encourages the identification of knowledge gaps and the forging of intertextual connections within the literature.

Emphasizing the importance of culturally competent care, the book argues for the urgent need to train mental health professionals who can effectively serve diverse populations. It concludes with actionable recommendations for mitigating the risks posed by epigenetic influences and lays out pathways toward achieving optimal mental health in Black communities.

A²: A Scholarly Poetical Science Discourse is a qualitative inquiry that pushes the bounds of multidisciplinary scholarship through poetics, prose, and academic discourse. Though fairly new, poetic inquiry as a research method has been found in “social science disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, nursing, social work, geography, women’s/feminist studies and education,” (Prendergast, 2009, p. 545). Harnessing this methodology, Dr. Ayo Sekai ventures to push the limits of academic scholarship by interrogating poetic discourse to address stigmas, norms and psycho-cultural perceptions weaponized against Black people through language. Recognizing the usage of language in oppressive systems, A² takes readers on an intellectual journey that harnesses the Black experience through poetically informed research, blending the socio-cultural lens of the spoken word. With a foundation of political science, and Sekai’s unique voice in the field of Linguistic Imperialism, this text provides eye-opening perspectives through its titular scholarly poetical science discourse.

The American Demagogue: Donald Trump analyzes Trump’s presidency through the lens of communication and Africology, highlighting his unique approach in distorting American values and institutions. The author specifically explores Trump’s use of fear, lies, and derogatory language, drawing parallels to historical demagogues. The book delves into Trump’s attacks on various American ideals, such as environmental protection, racial justice, and compassion. Additionally, it emphasizes Asante’s perspective on the impact of Trump’s rhetoric on the democratic tradition, offering insights into the resilience of American democracy.

In an election year, this book serves as a distinctive reflection on the intersection of politics, communication, and cultural studies, and the history of American demagogues.

As contemporary media continues to be a battleground for the portrayal of Black Women, Gammage explores the troubling proliferation of racially informed media depictions of the lives of Black Women, providing essential insights into the intersection of race, gender, and media representation in today’s world.

Media Racism: The Impact of Media Injustice on Black Women’s Lives establishes a critical framework for examining the role of media in shaping the lives of Black Women. It confronts the alarming scarcity of research dedicated to understanding the significance of media in perpetuating life disparities among this demographic. Through meticulous research and analysis, tables, and figures, Gammage sheds light on the multifaceted effects of media racism, encompassing physical, mental, cultural, political, and social dimensions.

"SKH is a luminous compendium of wisdom from the shores and heartland of ancient Africa and a bridge to us from the deep wisdom traditions. Your impeccable scholarship and vision made that possible. I congratulate you on a magnificent contribution to our field, and by extension, to the study of human consciousness itself. Truly superb !"
—Edward Bruce Bynum, Ph.D., A.B.P.P.

"In using his voice, Baba Dr. Wade Ifágb ?mi Sàngódáre Nobles speaks purposely and authentically with an uncompromising clarity about the science of spirit and the origins of Black psychology. This manuscript, with all of its intellectual breadth and depth, is crowning achievement in a stellar career and body of work Wade W. Nobles continues to produce and leave us. Dr. Nobles has produced a masterpiece. Indeed, this text is a legacy work!"
—Thomas A. Parham, Ph.D, President California State University, Dominguez Hills

"The sage wisdom of Baba Wade Nobles is helping us to reclaim that which we have forgotten and to heal the wounds from generations in which we have struggled to be. Skh: From Black Psychology to The Science of Being is dense with possibility for the liberated African mind ready to discern the very principles shared in this legacy body of work. It exemplifies an unflinching commitment to truth, to an African worldview and episteme, and to a centering of Pan African perception, knowledge, and experience. This book speaks to akwure, the principle of truth. It is an essential guide for our going forward."
—Cheryl Tawede Grills, Ph.D. Professor, Psychology Director, Psychology Applied Research Center President’s Professor Loyola Marymount University

A pioneer in his field, and founding member of the Association of Black Psychologists, Dr. Wade Nobles life’s work has been no less than a formal engagement in the on-going theoretical development and programmatic application of African (Black) psychology, African centered thought, and cultural grounding to address the liberation and restoration of the African mind and world-wide development of African people.In his new book, Skh From Black Psychology to The Science of Being, Dr. Nobles will revolutionize how we internalize and operationalize psychological processes and reframe how we think of psychology. Through his intellectual journey, Nobles discusses the advent of the discipline of Black Psychology and detail its evolution to the Science of Being. With a brief critique of the inadequacy of the Western Grand narrative, the "big ideas" essential to exploring the fundamental and necessary epistemic correction will include an explication of African (BaNtu) thought and worldview. Nobles will detail the need to "return to the source" and explore BaNtu episteme as grounding.

Illmatic Consequences: The Clapback to Opponents of ‘Critical Race Theory,’ is a unique mix of social science and hip-hop essays that address the marginalization of Blacks in the United States. Led by editors Walter Greason and Danian Jerry, the contributors in this edited volume address pervasive social injustice using hip-hop and Afrofuturism to offer solutions to cultural divisiveness.

Illmatic Consequences was influenced by rapper Nas’s 1994 debut album Illmatic,” which features internal rhymes and inner-city narratives based on Nas’s personal experiences. “Nas’s 1994 album ‘Illmatic’ is fundamentally a statement of self-worth. It’s not even just a conscious effort. It’s just you do it because it’s embedded in you—and that’s the feeling, the vibe we wanted anyone reading the book to get from all the constituent chapters,” said Greason.

The essays, written by prominent and emerging social science scholars, artists, and journalists, address the disinformation campaign around CRT, the attacks on public education, the rise of mass disinformation, and other social injustice issues plaguing the nation.

Illmatic Consequences is a bold intervention in the mushrooming field of Hip Hop Studies. The anthology uses Critical Race Theory lenses to theorize political, class, scientific, spatial, and cultural dimensions of Hip Hop as modality and practice. From considerations of proto-CRT scholar/activism to contemporary issues ranging from public health and Black representations in narrative meaning making to fundamental issues of housing and education, the message is clear: Culture is a tool for self-determination and self-defense among oppressed peoples.”
— Greg Carr, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University, Adjunct Faculty, Howard School of Law

“If there’s anything that has prevented human beings from being human beings, then it is the discourse of racist ideas. Being Human Being cogently and clearly reveals the illusion, disruption, and distraction of racist ideas, which have left people conceptually stranded from the fullness of humanity. And this moving book goes a step further. Molefi Kete Asante and Nah Dove return us to the ancient idea of Ma’at-thus returning us to humanity.”
—Ibram X. Kendi, PhD, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities,
Professor of History, Boston University

During a time of high racial tension, Being Human Being seeks to dispel divisiveness, and instead present a vision of a united humanity. With scientific basis established from The Human Genome Project, the authors explore what it means to be human, the myth of race, and the importance of common identity. The conclusions of the Human Genome Project discredit those who deny humanity’s genesis on the African continent; and, they allow for new examination of the fictitious basis upon which modern society justifies its divisions, privileges, and punishments. In this book, the discourse navigates the complex illusion of race by tracing its cultural and religious origins. Furthering the ideas brought forth in Ibram X. Kendi’s critically acclaimed book How to Be An Antiracist, the authors express the power in ending the language of race entirely, bringing forth a new era in which racism no longer plagues the human experience. With in depth evidence surrounding the colloquial misuse of the term "race," Being Human Being argues that the term human, robust and newly re-envisioned, eradicates the need for the illusion of categorical racial boundaries. The authors, in their acknowledgement of the differences that exist among humans, found that such distinctions are more easily explained culturally rather than "racially." Even so, habitual reference to these racial partitions are ingrained into many aspects of the contemporary landscape. Knowing this, Being Human Being addresses the challenges of exchanging race for humanity within mainstream media, academic circles, and pop culture.

Being Human Being depicts the importance of education in combating those who benefit from, and promote, racism. Educating the masses would allow multicultural, pluralistic societies to be achieved in a practical way. The authors suggest that humanity is hindered by its disunity, and that through concepts like Ma’aticity, the ancient way of becoming human, society can achieve its highest potential. Featuring an array of examples, illustrations, and theoretical models, Being Human Being demonstrates that the only race is the human race.

The Precarious Center or When Will the African Narrative Hold? dispels the Western romanization of Greek, English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese to the detriment of African ideas and ideals. This text re‑centers the African world and dispels the dominating myths and memes of Greek society, which have obliterated all other approaches with the false idea of European superiority in a multiethnic and multicultural world.

The Precarious Center strengthens global communication equality and frees the human spirit by challenging the assertive memes of the West to allow spaces for other cultural postures to thrive.

Who are we? is a central question asked throughout the African Diaspora. This handbook offers answers to that burning question based on ancient African principles that relate to the critical role of teaching our children and are drawn from Nah Dove’s UNICEF-sponsored work in Ghana. Grounded in the love of African humanity—women, men, girls, and boys, this handbook counters anti-African and anti-Black beliefs that have been propounded over centuries. This work recognizes a range of African cultural values, beliefs, and behaviors every bit as wide as there was amongst the different peoples who conquered Africa.

In Afrocentric School: BluePrint, the cultural legacy and heritage of Africa is embraced to reawaken the cultural memory. Dove provides a foundational curriculum for children aged 3–15 years, with standards based on expectations developed from child development and education baseline studies.

Readers will learn how to:

• Provide students the opportunity to begin the study of the world, its people, concepts, and history from the view of the African child’s heritage;
• Identify African principles and teachings;
• Correct distorted information; and
• Develop lesson plans that guide the teacher, parent, student, and reader in understanding African cultural history from an Afrocentric theoretical perspective.

In this presentation, we highlight a few of the many activities that teachers, parents, and families will find to reclaim African knowledge and reawaken their children’s honest and restored cultural identity.

Since its first release in 2017, Revolutionary Pedagogy: A Primer for Teachers of Black Children has captivated educators and professionals in the field of education with overwhelming praise, offering both theoretical insights and practical guidance on pedagogy.

While its focus is on empowering students of African descent, the principles presented in this book transcend ethnic boundaries and are designed to equip teachers with the tools to create revolutionary pedagogy for all learners. In the Second Edition, Asante:

• Challenges the existing education system and promotes a commitment to excellence for all students;
• Corrects distorted information, and helps educators recognize dysconscious racism;
• Provides guidance for educators in urban environments, addressing unique challenges and unlocking the potential of every student;
• Explores the pressing issue of urban violence and calls for an educational revolution rooted in cultural identity and personal growth;
• Re?centers dislocated African?American students and expands the knowledge of all other students in the classroom;
• Advocates for an Afrocentric approach to unlock student potential and foster empowerment in the classroom;
• Inspires educators and educational professionals to reshape education and create a brighter future for all learners.

Whether you’re an educator seeking innovative approaches to teaching, or an educational professional dedicated to promoting inclusivity and empowerment, Revolutionary Pedagogy is an essential resource that will revolutionize the way you engage with all students.

Radical Insurgencies draws and translates wisdom from Africology, history, sociology, and philosophy to stitch together various social and political concerns presented by Asante in various academic settings. The book offers selected portions of significant speeches, an adaptation from the author’s The American Demagogue, and a selection of conference papers presented in British Columbia, Zimbabwe, and the Chinese Communication Conference in 2011.

What is a person to do with the pain, anger, fear, frustration and dismay of Black defamation and demise due to White supremacy’s racism and anti-Blackness? Even more, how does one celebrate the triumph of surviving and escaping enslavement, establishing civil rights, creating and promulgating renaissance after renaissance as social movements while inspiring the world to take note? Wonder no more. Dr. Molefi K. Asante has eloquently penned an emotional spectrum of poems truly reflecting the spirit, soul, and humanity of Black people in 400 Years of Witnessing: A Memoir of a People 1619-2019.

The substantive and meaningful reflections on and about Black life and the social conditions it has encountered and often endured over 400 years fosters a compelling need for readers to journey page-by-page through each poem. With effortless ease to read, Dr. Asante weaves a tapestry of Black strength, vulnerability, and resolve unlike any other collection of Black poetic expressions through what is likely to become a literary favorite though the brilliance of 400 Years of Witnessing: A Memoir of a People 1619-2019.

Demagogues act as if they have a right to rule not as Plato’s philosopher kings but, in a twisted perversion, because of their supposed higher intelligence. And yet, in the case of Donald Trump, there is little evidence that he has a liberal education or a broad understanding of the contemporary world. Trump neither reads deeply nor is he willing to be taught by those who do read seriously.

Given that Adolf Hitler openly preached anti-Semitism and believed in the superiority of the German people, what does it mean that the people could see him as a leader? For him, there was nothing wrong with the German society except it had opened itself up to an "invasion" of non-German people. The idea was to create and maintain a purely German state with people who had German blood.

The American Demagogue provides historical records and proof of hatred that gave rise to Donald Trump and highlights why it is crucial to interpret the guideposts history offers, such as how genocide, xenophobia, and misogynistic ideas dominate.

These authors, all deeply dedicated to the telling of an African story, are committed to righting the wrongs of intellectual inquiry by setting upright the standards, criteria, and assumptions often avoided by Eurocentrists of any complexion. Without the ’lions of Africa’ speaking and writing about their narratives, the fields of literature, philosophy, social science, history, and psychology, evidence would cede to those without the slightest idea about the African knowledge base or how to add to it. Thus, the authors in this volume speak loudly, and write deftly and definitively to erect a new phalanx of liberated minds.

Readers will learn how:

• Black people of the African Diaspora have a story that transcends Eurocentric teachings and ideology.
• The intricate knowledge of history, physical, and social sciences are rich in the scholarship of Black educators.
• To navigate the spaces of socio-political concepts by shedding new light and thinking strategy.
• The stories are different when the lions are not the victims but can display agency in the hunt and hunted.

The authors in this book logically state the cultural, social, economic, political, and literary facts regarding African people and explore what Africans have said-and will say.

Revolutionary Pedagogy: Primer for Teachers of Black Children is a passionate appeal to teachers to take what George Dei calls a "transgressive" position toward education’s status quo, a status quo often expressed as a commitment to excellence of all students. This book offers tools for those who want to reverse the brain freeze that often accompanies this seemingly innocuous goal, assisting both the students and the teachers laboring in urban situations.

Readers will learn how and what to use to:

• Create revolutionary pedagogy
• Provide students the opportunity to study the world, its people, concepts, and history from the point of view of the African child’s heritage
• Identify the three critical challenges to white supremacist teachings
• Correct distorted information
• Recognize dysconscious racism
• Re-center dislocated African American students and expand the knowledge of all other students in the classroom

Revolutionary Pedagogy: Primer for Teachers of Black Children gives teachers the best tools possible to unlock the potential in (all) children sitting in their classroom.

From religion to love, slavery to freedom, language is a powerful tool. We use words to identify, express, impose and create movements, overthrow governments, topple dictators and impart knowledge. It is no surprise then that the news media, schools, and religious institutions can use words, images, symbols, music, art, and stories, to either keep people subjugated or break the chains of mental, emotional, and psychological imprisonment.

Afrocentric Before Afrocentricity: A Quest Towards Endarkenment analyzes the power of language as a tool of communication, as a process of evolution and as plank to walk in the realization of who you are and where you belong. Afrocentric Before Afrocentricity unfolds as a chronological journey, that especially through the most recent pieces, applies the Afrocentricity paradigm, movements such as Pan-Africanism, and theories such as Corpus Linguistics to assert a counter narrative to discrimination. These pieces debunk linguistic imperialistic ideologies, and through poetic prose, offer a small way to limit the etymological assault on the erosion of Black consciousness.

Molefi Kete Asante argues that the infamous historical acts of lynching black men in the United States might be used to describe how many people of the white Right Wing have used various techniques to "string up" presidential objectives. Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States met immediate resistance from a white majority that voted for his opponent in 2008. This was repeated in 2012.

Asante contends that whites felt that they had lost "their" country and the only way to act was to prevent Barack Obama from asserting himself as a black man. Asante shows in a compelling manner, by choosing many of the attacks on Obama found in the media, that the President was tied up, roped, and hung out to dry by the white Republican Right. Nevertheless, as Asante explains Barack Obama championed some of the most progressive actions ever addressed by a president.

In this volume Asante has sought to provide the formal and informal student with the structure for critical reflections on significant issues in the African world. Thus, African Pyramids is as much a methodological as theoretical work.

Molefi Kete Asante has been named by his peers as one of the most influential contemporary scholars in America. In fact, Maulana Karenga said,"Molefi is the preeminent Afrocentric theorist, an intellectual of the highest caliber, and a fine human being." Michael Dyson has written that, "The pioneering Afrocentrist Molefi Kete Asante is one of the most influential African American scholars." Asante’s contribution to scholarship appears in his own work, the work of his mentored students, and the critical scholarship engendered by his provocative philosophical approach to the study of Africa and its Diaspora. He writes history, novels, short stories, essays, plays, critical commentary, and poetry.

Asante has directed more than 120 doctoral students and his students lead departments and teach at universities across the world. Professor Asante received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles and has taught at UCLA, Purdue, SUNY-Buffalo, Florida State, Howard, and Temple University. Asante is a Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and Professor Extraordinarius at the University of South Africa. He is currently Professor and Chair, Department of Africology, Temple University. Asante has published 78 (seventy-eight) books, including the comprehensive The History of Africa. African Pyramids of Knowledge represents a synthesis of Asante’s most powerful arguments for the overturn of a Eurocentric consciousness that prevents African people from exercising their own agency based on their fundamental cultural values.

Charles Fuller is a pre‑eminent American dramatist, yet few critics have examined Charles Fuller seriously or even speak of his philosophy, style, originality, and brilliance. Despite winning some of the highest awards in the nation, his work, like that of so many other Black writers, has fallen outside the gaze of contemporary literary and dramatic discourse. This book brings a critical reading and sympathetic location of Fuller’s drama in the center of African American dramatic and social history.

The Dramatic Genius of Charles Fuller is an accessible and appropriate introduction to the mind of Fuller for those who know his work and those who do not.