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The Day You Begin
The Day You Begin Neoma Nwasike Book Review Have you ever felt like an outsider, or like you just did not belong? In this big world, with so many different faces, it can sometimes feel overwhelming a...
Brown Boys Rule
Brown Boys Rule Clarence V. Reynolds Book Review While listening to a recent meditation session on the app Happier—one of my favorites—I was reminded of the importance of embracing wo...
Get On Up: The James Brown Story
Get On Up: The James Brown Story Kam Williams get-on-up-movie-poster-2.jpg Film Review Chadwick Channels James Brown in Nostalgic Jukebox Musical Get on Up: The James Brown Story In Theaters: Au...
Bright Eyes
Bright Eyes Troy Johnson Book Review Here, Cheryl Willis Hudson co-author of: Bright Eyes, Brown Skin, helps young children see the beauty of their physical characteristics. Bright eyes, brown sk...
Brown Glass Window
Brown Glass Window Thumper Book Review I’ve been waiting a long time for this and it is a privilege and a pleasure to state that Devorah Major’s new novel Brown Glass Window is out ...
The Icarus Girl
The Icarus Girl Paige Turner Book Review Jessamy Harrison is an eight year-old, Afro-British girl, who writes haiku, reads Shakespeare, and just skipped a grade in school. Jess’ parents...
Brown Girl in the Ring
Brown Girl in the Ring Sheree Renée Thomas Book Review Science fiction fans who love the vision and storytelling prowess of Octavia E. Butler are in for a treat with this up-all-nighter f...
Sweet Georgia Brown
Sweet Georgia Brown Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Can A Woman Reinvent Herself? Cheryl Robinson is known for writing novels with a twist, portraying women who face the odds and succeed. Her books...
The Girl Is in Trouble
The Girl Is in Trouble Kam Williams the-girl-is-in-trouble.jpg Film Review The Girl Is in Trouble In Theaters: Apr 3, 2015 LimitedOn DVD: May 11, 2015Runtime: 1 hr. 34 min.Rating: UnratedGenre: Myst...
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky
The Girl Who Fell from the Sky Thumper Book Review The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow is the most remarkable debut novel that I have read in years! The small novel about a young girl...
God Don’t Like Ugly
God Don’t Like Ugly Thumper Book Review "I was hoping when I started God don't Like Ugly that it wasn't the typical girl-coming-of-age story. Alongside you-go-girl books, girl-coming-of...
Before Brown
Before Brown Kam Williams Book Review "Before Brown details the ferment in civil rights that took place across the South before the momentous Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. T...
It Was The Devil All Along: A Memoir
It Was The Devil All Along: A Memoir Robert Fleming Book Review Her name is Avalon Soulette Brown, a God-sent woman who happens to be an accomplished nurse from Newark, New Jersey, and still lives ...
Oil and Water and Other Things That don’t Mix
Oil and Water and Other Things That don’t Mix Robert Fleming Book Review If you take a trip to the once-scenic Gulf Coast, you will see there is more to be done in the restoration and rejuvenation...
Blue in Green
Blue in Green Robert Fleming Book Review On August 25, 1959, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis escorts a white girl to a cab, lights a cigarette outside Birdland, and a city policeman harasses the black man...
Going Home In Chains: Stories
Going Home In Chains: Stories Robert Fleming Book Review Glenville Lovell, one of the foremost Caribbean writers, has written several novels, including the acclaimed Fire in the Canes, Too Beautifu...
Flesh: The Disappearance of Portia Barrington
Flesh: The Disappearance of Portia Barrington Robert Fleming Book Review As the author of over a dozen novels including the bestselling Little Girl Lost series, Keith Lee Johnson has created his ...
Love Don’t Come Easy
Love Don’t Come Easy Tiffany M. Davis Book Review Boy looks for girl. Boy finds girl. Boy loses girl. Boy looks for another girl. J.T. Smith puts a fresh spin on an old formula in his highly enterta...
Dakota Grand: A Novel
Dakota Grand: A Novel Brian Egeston Book Review There are codes within creeds and creeds within cliques. Perhaps this is the most subliminal, if not unintentional, message in Kenji Jasper’s lat...
Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been
Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been Amanda Robinson Book Review In the midst of arguably a time of the greatest push for the advocacy of LGBT acceptance, Jackie Hi...
Badass Black Girl: Questions, Quotes, and Affirmations for Teens
Badass Black Girl: Questions, Quotes, and Affirmations for Teens Carol Taylor Book Review Dear Badass Black Girl, You are a true warrior who inherited the strength, courage, wisdom, love, and di...
The Juju Girl
The Juju Girl Robert Fleming Book Review Awarded by the 2022 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Self Published ebook in fiction by an African American author, Nikki Marsh’s The Ju...
Confessions of a Call Girl
Confessions of a Call Girl Kam Williams confes55.jpg Film Review Tamala Jones Plays Conflicted Title Character in Kinky Blaxploitation Flick Confessions of a Call Girl Click to ...
Mrs. Black
Mrs. Black Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Angelia Vernon Menchan who also has written under the name, acVernon Menchan has just released an new novel that takes us further into the world of the...
Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina
Joan Myers Brown & the Audacious Hope of the Black Ballerina Kam Williams Book Review “Blacks in the segregationist United States of America of the 30s and 40s fought back with inherent toug...
50 Years after Brown: The State of Black Equality in America
50 Years after Brown: The State of Black Equality in America Kam Williams Book Review "The state of black equality in America 50 years after Brown reflects the historical recalcitrance o...
The Ex Chronicles: A Novel
The Ex Chronicles: A Novel Thumper Book Review If any of you have been following me for any length of time, you are well aware of how I feel about the 3, 4 sista-girlfriends novels that had become ...
The Naked Truth
The Naked Truth Kam Williams Book Review ’I was born Marvelyn Brown, a little black girl in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 7, 1984, but I wouldn’t understand the signi...
Get Down: Stories
Get Down: Stories Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Asali Solomon’s collection of short stories, Get Down is a short story reader’s delight. The stories are so real and many are set in Solomon&r...
Powder Necklace
Powder Necklace Thumper Book Review I was trying not to like Powder Necklace, the debut novel by Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond. I had had my fill of the black girl coming-of-age story. A few years ago, ...
The Lost German Slave Girl
The Lost German Slave Girl Paige Turner Book Review Only the great American melting pot could provide a setting where an Australian author recounts the tale of an orphaned German immigrant who was ...
Rising
Rising Thumper Book Review Rising, Darnella Ford’s fictional debut is explosive. It is the story of a young girl who lives through a number of tragic occurrences. Rising hits the ground runni...
White Boy/Black Girl
White Boy/Black Girl Eryka Parker Book Review The recently published White Boy/Black Girl: What Our Differences Can Teach Us, One Honest Conversation at a Time by Adaeze and Chad Brinkman is a though...
Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice System
Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice System Kam Williams Book Review “The August 9th fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by poli...
Awaken
Awaken Melissa Brown Levine Book Review Awaken is a powerful story about heritage and restoration. Author Timothy George takes an innovative approach in this African-focused tale by combining m...
The PACMAN Plan
The PACMAN Plan Tiffany M. Davis Book Review The PACMAN plan is an ambitious debut by Sam A. Kempt. Set in the smoldering background of Austin, Texas, this book takes an eye-opening look at race, ...
Brown’s Possession
Brown’s Possession Idrissa Uqdah Book Review To say that the books in acVernon Menchan’s trilogy; Black’s Trilogy are about a complicated love story is like saying water is wet. C...
Sojourner’s Dream
Sojourner’s Dream Idrissa Uqdah Book Review An Inside Look At The Atrocities of War In Rwanda I approached the novel, Sojourner’s Dream by first time author Angeline Bandon-Bibum expecting a ...
Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice Sys
Justice While Black: Helping African-American Families Navigate and Survive the Criminal Justice Sys Kam Williams Book Review “The August 9th fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown by police ...
The Root of All Evil
The Root of All Evil Lawrence Brown Book Review Just as many African-American readers have started to complain about the lack of depth in of Black Literature, complaining about the all-too-familiar p...
What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman
What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman Robert Fleming Book Review This was a labor of love. Over seven years ago, it was the mission of Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown, a Harvard-tr...
Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy
Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy Karen Brown Book Review I had just recently attended the 2024 International Conference and Festival of Blacks in Dance in Memphis, Tenness...
The Known World
The Known World Thumper Book Review As is becoming an unbreakable and pleasurable yearly excursion, I attended the 2003 Book Expo America (BEA) in Los Angeles. I love the BEA. The convention is all...
Sittin’ In The Front Pew
Sittin’ In The Front Pew Thumper Book Review Sittin’ In The Front Pew is the latest novel by Parry "EbonySatin" Brown. This tale showcases the reactions a family to the death of its ...
Kinyarwanda
Kinyarwanda Kam Williams images/kinyarwanda_movie_poster.jpg Film Review Rwandan Tragedy Revisited in "Crash"-Like Ensemble Drama Read an interview with the film maker Alrick Brown Kinyarwanda ...
Dead Presidents
Dead Presidents Ted Prigge images/dead.h42.jpg Film Review DEAD PRESIDENTS (1995) (out of a possible ) Directors: Allen and Albert Hughes Writer: Michael Henry Brown (based on a...
The Express
The Express Kam Williams rob_br10.jpg Film Review Rob Brown Stars as Late Gridiron Great in Bittersweet Bio-Pic The Express (2008) Rated PG for violence, mature ...
GhettoPhysics
GhettoPhysics Kam Williams images/ghettophysics.jpg Film Review Radical Fringe Flick Breaks World Down to Pimp and Hos GhettoPhysics: Will the Real Pimps and Hos Please Stand Up! Rated R for...
That Mean Old Yesterday: A Memoir
That Mean Old Yesterday: A Memoir Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Paint a picture of a little brown girl who walks in fear and sadness. Her dark story is told in Stacey Patton’s memoir, Tha...
From Dusk To Dawn
From Dusk To Dawn Idrissa Uqdah Book Review The opening chapter of From Dusk To Dawn by first-time novelist Niambi Brown Davis reads like your average romance novel, but this reviewer found ...
Genesis Begins Again
Genesis Begins Again Shafika Burke Book Review Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams is a powerful, poignant, and ultimately empowering middle-grade novel that highlights issues sure to interest...
The New Brownies’ Book
The New Brownies’ Book Clarence V. Reynolds Book Review In the November 1910 premier issue of The Crisis, the official journal of the NAACP, historian, scholar, civil rights activist, sociologist, an...
Sucka 4 Luv
Sucka 4 Luv Kam Williams sucka-4-luv.jpg Film Review Sucka 4 Luv (2014) Click to Buy or Rent This Film Unrated Running time: 84 minutes Distributor: Pierre Films Romance Film Review...
Glorious
Glorious Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Bernice McFadden’s long awaited release, is pure poetry. This novel sings to you through the eyes of Easter Bartlett who runs away as a young girl when ...
Trading Dreams at Midnight
Trading Dreams at Midnight Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Mothers and Daughters: A Family of Women For more than twenty years, Neena has been searching for her absent, mentally ill mother, F...
The Roux in the Gumbo
The Roux in the Gumbo Idrissa Uqdah Book Review A Black Family’s Odyssey in America Kim Robinson has written a remarkable account of her family’s history gathered from stories she was ...
Beautiful Ugly (Urban Christian)
Beautiful Ugly (Urban Christian) Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Not Just Another Girlfriends’ Tale Lipsey’s fourth and most recent Christian novel, Beautiful Ugly is chock full of emo...
How To Knock A Bravebird From Her Perch
How To Knock A Bravebird From Her Perch Carol Taylor Book Review Inspired by family and friends who have been victims of abuse, D. Bryant Simmons, an advocate of female empowerment and children&rsq...
Diary of a Lost Girl (2)
Diary of a Lost Girl (2) Chris Stevenson Book Review “There are more pyramids in the Sudan than there are in Egypt, that’s a statistical fact… and today there are still 2-3 milli...
Hair Love
Hair Love Neoma Nwasike Book Review When you were a little Black girl, growing up, did you embrace your beauty? Did you love the deep richness of your blackness and the uniqueness of your hair? Do yo...
Destini the Chocolate Princess
Destini the Chocolate Princess Robert Fleming Book Review Joan Wright Lewis’ novel, Destini the Chocolate Princess, reveals a terrible affliction in our community; the degree of self-loathing b...
Fool Me Thrice
Fool Me Thrice Carol Taylor Book Review “No doubt, I was born a sucker—a sucker for a hot girl with a smile, that is. I have to admit I was abused by every gold-digger I came across. For ...
Blend In or Fade Out: A Memoir
Blend In or Fade Out: A Memoir Robert Fleming Book Review The main theme of identity takes center stage in Colnese M. Herndon’s emotional riveting memoir, Blend In Or Fade Out, as the writer in...
Something Like Beautiful
Something Like Beautiful Robert Fleming Book Review In many ways, the award-winning poet and journalist asha bandele’s second memoir, Something Like Beautiful: One Single Mother&rsquo...
Logic
Logic Thumper Book Review I was caught unaware. I was not forewarned or prepared for Olympia Vernon’s beyond marvelous second novel Logic. I knew Vernon was a capable writer after reading her...
I Called Him Morgan
I Called Him Morgan Kam Williams https://aalbc.com/authors/images/i-called-him-morgan.jpg Film Review Reverential Retrospective Revisits Abbreviated Life of Legendary Jazz Great Excellent (4 star...
Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?
Is Bill Cosby Right?: Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? Kam Williams Book Review “A book you can’t put down, but for all the wrong reasons.” “On May 17, 2004, ...
The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America
The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America Kam Williams Book Review “How is it that a Jewish prophet from the Roman era ran so explosively into the American obsession...
Grasshopper Speaks
Grasshopper Speaks Emanuel Carpenter Book Review In Katrina Register’s memoir, “Grasshopper Speaks,” the author takes readers on the whirlwind journey of her life. In this debut, s...
Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living
Reach: 40 Black Men Speak on Living Kam Williams Book Review “I’m aware that, for black men today, racism is still an obstacle that causes tremendous anger and suffering… Whether...
Say It Loud! Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African-American Identity
Say It Loud! Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African-American Identity Kam Williams Book Review "This is the second anthology of great speeches by African-Americans meant for the eye and ea...
Isaac and the Bah Family Tree
Isaac and the Bah Family Tree Kam Williams Book Review ’There was a tree that stood alone in the Bah family backyard. Thick, brown bark covered the trunk, while the gently swa...
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God
Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God Kam Williams Book Review “Why is it becoming increasingly acceptable to kill unarmed black children? Why are they so easily perceived as...
Because of Race
Because of Race Kam Williams Book Review ’Today, racial inequality of opportunity and outcome in education is still the result of past generations of explicit policy decree...
Come on People
Come on People Kam Williams Book Review "For the last three and a half years, I have been holding community call-outs in cities around the country… This book will cover selec...
Forty Million Dollar Slaves
Forty Million Dollar Slaves Kam Williams Book Review "The Belt carries young black athletes out of black America and introduces them to a world with very few African-Americans, a world o...
If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer
If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer Kam Williams Book Review "I’m going to tell you a story you’ve never heard before, because no one knows this story the way I know it. It t...
Learning about the Africans That Came to the Americas!
Learning about the Africans That Came to the Americas! Kam Williams Book Review "When I looked at my small son and wondered what types of information would be important for him to learn that I...
Letters to a Young Brother
Letters to a Young Brother Kam Williams Book Review "Young men today have been bombarded with images of wealth and success that tell them that buying the hottest car or the most bling...
My Holy Bible for African-American Children King James Version
My Holy Bible for African-American Children King James Version Kam Williams Book Review "If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’l...
Supreme Discomfort
Supreme Discomfort Kam Williams Book Review ’[Clarence] Thomas once said he would never accept a race-based job, and yet he spent an entire federal career in such positions’ The irony i...
Delightfulee
Delightfulee Robert Fleming Book Review One of Jazz’s trumpet kings, Dizzy Gillespie, a founder of bop, considered Lee Morgan one of the major post-bop trumpet stylists, along with Fr...
Baring My Soul
Baring My Soul Rondall Brasher Book Review I have just finished a collection of poems called Baring My Soul by Stacey Renee Tolbert aka "The Brown Suga Poet". It was my first introduction ...
Black Like Us
Black Like Us Thumper Book Review Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual African American Fiction, the latest anthology of gay/lesbian AA literature, is, in a word, splendid. Showcas...
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir Brenda M. Greene Book Review Jaquira Diaz, in her memoir Ordinary Girls, crafts a story that illustrates the intersection of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and poverty on the li...
You Made Me Love You
You Made Me Love You Robert Fleming Book Review Like Ishmael Reed, Clarence Major, and other legendary African-American male writers of their generation, John Edgar Wideman, at eighty, is nearing the...
The Black Agenda
The Black Agenda Robert Fleming Book Review Who was Glen Ford? If you ask that question of some of the best critical thinkers in the Black community, they would say Ford was one of the most capabl...
His Name Is George Floyd
His Name Is George Floyd Robert Fleming Book Review In the midst of the deadly Covic-19 pandemic, the world witnessed the brutal killing of George Floyd, a 44-year-old black man, by a white Minneapol...
An Affirmation Nite Baby Nite
An Affirmation Nite Baby Nite Sandra W. Headen Book Review An Affirmation: Nite Baby Nite is a gift to parents, grandparents, and everyone who loves children and picture books. Even more, it is a tre...
Breaking The Blank
Breaking The Blank Eryka Parker Book Review If poetry is an artful expression of the soul, the creators of Breaking the Blank understood the assignment. This compelling literary work proudly speaks o...
Black Hands White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America
Black Hands White House: Slave Labor and the Making of America Robert Fleming Book Review Renee K. Harrison, an associate professor of African American and US religious history at Howard University, ...
We Refuse to Be Silent
We Refuse to Be Silent Robert Fleming Book Review Back in 2014, after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, journalist and writer Angela P. Dodson got the idea then for her recently publi...
The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation
The First Eight: A Personal History of the Pioneering Black Congressmen Who Shaped a Nation Robert Fleming Book Review South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn’s The First Eight: A Personal Histo...
Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor
Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor Kam Williams Book Review ‘Hokum is my chance to recognize and thank the black upper-, middle-, low-, and no-class clown for being more than comic...
Wimbey’s Corner
Wimbey’s Corner Emanuel Carpenter Book Review At first glance, one might think that Wimbey’s Corner is a story about a big and black country bumpkin’ named Wayne Hunter who moves from a...
Camilla&squo;s Roses
Camilla&squo;s Roses Thumper Book Review Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! *smile* No, my sugar level is not low. I am of sound mind. I know that I ...
The Savion Sequence
The Savion Sequence Connie Bradley Book Review This review is of the 2011 version of The Savion Sequence My interest was recently piqued by a trailer which appeared on the AALBC.com discussion b...
The Great Deluge
The Great Deluge Kam Williams Book Review ’One person not seen on the streets, at the Superdome, or on a rescue boat of any kind was Mayor Nagin. Since the storm had approached the Crescent C...
The Black Dancing Body
The Black Dancing Body Rondall Brasher Book Review This book actually came to my attention last month on the home page of African American Literature Book Club. Troy had it in the revolving new titl...
The Bridge
The Bridge Thumper Book Review The Bridge, the second novel by Solomon Jones, should blow open the doors that his debut novel, Pipe Dreams did not. I am getting excited simply remembering the book ...