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The Speech: The Story behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream
The Speech: The Story behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream Kam Williams Book Review “A great speech is both timely and timeless. First and foremost, it must touch and move its immediate ...
Dear Mary, Dear Luther: A Courtship in Letters
Dear Mary, Dear Luther: A Courtship in Letters Carol Taylor Book Review Dear Mary, Dear Luther: A Courtship in Letters is an epistolary love story of a 1930s courtship between Mary Brooks and Luther ...
Tuskegee Love Letters
Tuskegee Love Letters Kam Williams Book Review “My father was a pilot with the all-Negro Tuskegee Airmen; my mother a steno-typist… Separated by war and duty, they shared the events of...
Book of Letters
Book of Letters Robert Fleming Book Review Mary J. Taylor’s Book Of Letters is just that, a book of letters from the Old School of storytelling. The series of sepia cultural flashbacks moves th...
Do You Speak American?
Do You Speak American? Kam Williams Book Review "It is one of the paradoxes of American life that white America both is fascinated by black culture and disapproves of it, embracing it and bad-...
Conversation with the Mann
Conversation with the Mann Thumper Book Review Not since Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man has a first person narrative novel struck me with such a poignant sense of completeness and satisfaction a...
Letters to a Young Sister
Letters to a Young Sister Kam Williams Book Review ’In Letters to a Young Sister, Hill has covered all the important issues. As a woman, I can't agree more with how import...
The Color Purple
The Color Purple Angeli R. Rasbury Book Review Alice Walker once told an interviewer, "The black woman is one of America’s greatest heroes… . She has been oppressed beyond recogni...
Echoes of Cabrini-Green: Letters to my Mother
Echoes of Cabrini-Green: Letters to my Mother Eryka Parker Book Review In Echoes of Cabrini-Green, Rudolph Elliot Willis writes letters to his late mother, narrating the events of his childhood leadi...
Every Man a King
Every Man a King Robert Fleming Book Review For those who love the creators of the hard-boiled private dicks from the 1930s such as Dashiell Hammett, James Cain, and Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley&r...
The Courage to Hope: How I Stood Up to the Politics of Fear
The Courage to Hope: How I Stood Up to the Politics of Fear Kam Williams Book Review “In the summer of 2010, Shirley Sherrod was catapulted into a media storm that blew apart her life…...
I Always Knew: A Memoir
I Always Knew: A Memoir Robert Fleming Book Review This country rarely acknowledges the celebrated triple threats of the arts in our community. Consider Barbara Chase-Riboud, the noted African-Americ...
Raising the Bar
Raising the Bar Kam Williams Book Review “Gabrielle Douglas is the first African-American and first woman of color from any nation to win an Olympic gold medal in the individual gymnastics ...
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...
In Spite of the Consequences: Prison Letters on Exoneration, Abolition, and Freedom
In Spite of the Consequences: Prison Letters on Exoneration, Abolition, and Freedom Robert Fleming Book Review If you were politically conscious decades ago, you would have read the prison chronicles...
The Felix Women Series
The Felix Women Series Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Acceptance Not Required: Felix Women IV Click to order via Amazon Print Length: 58 pages (October 10, 2014) This author, Angelia Vernon M...
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...
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...
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...
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks Kam Williams Book Review “Described by the New York Times as ‘the accidental matriarch of the civil rights movement,’ the Rosa Parks who surf...
This Is the Day: The March on Washington
This Is the Day: The March on Washington Kam Williams Book Review “There have been many marches since, and several before, but no other march to the nation’s capital captured our collec...
The Audacity of Hope
The Audacity of Hope Kam Williams Book Review ’There’s a school of thought that sees the Founding Fathers only as hypocrites and the Constitution only as a betrayal of the grand ideal...
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Pray the Devil Back to Hell Kam Williams images/pray_t16.jpg Film Review PBS Series Documentary from Liberia Features 2011 Nobel Peace Prize-Winner Pray the Devil Back to Hell premieres ...
Reconsidering The Souls of Black Folk
Reconsidering The Souls of Black Folk Thumper Book Review To commemorate the 100th anniversary of The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois — of one of the most significant books ever publis...
Go
Go Kam Williams Book Review ’This extraordinary collection of letters to Michelle Obama says a great deal about the lives, the hopes, prayers, fears, and aspirations of Africa...
The Conversation
The Conversation Kam Williams Book Review ’One of the things I’ve heard a lot from young brothers and sisters during my recent travels is ’I want a woman like Mich...
Obama Talks Back: Global Lessons A Dialogue with America’s Young Leaders
Obama Talks Back: Global Lessons A Dialogue with America’s Young Leaders Kam Williams Book Review “This collection of letters [offer] a rare glimpse into the dialogue between our nation&rsquo...
This Leaves Me Okay
This Leaves Me Okay Ahmad Wright Book Review It is not every day that your grandmother writes you a letter. Even rarer for a grandmother with an eighth-grade education to write periodically in her ow...
The Wanderers
The Wanderers Eryka Parker Book Review The Wanderers by Mphuthumi Ntabeni is political fiction that straddles the line between novel and essay collection, weaving together themes of exile, faith, and...
The Strawberry Letter: Real Talk
The Strawberry Letter: Real Talk Kam Williams Book Review "I’ve been Shirley’s partner in radio for over ten years now… I am amazed by how she manages to balance her personal and...
Men We Cherish
Men We Cherish Thumper Book Review African-American Women Praise The Men In Their Lives, Edited by Brooke Stephens is an anthology. A book filled with laughter, heartache, inspiration, comfort, heart...
The Hiptionary
The Hiptionary Kam Williams Book Review ’Throughout the cultural evolution of the United States, Black people have consistently contributed a huge stock of colorful words, phr...
We Cast a Shadow
We Cast a Shadow Tony Lindsay Book Review In Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s first novel, We Cast a Shadow, the reader meets a complex and unnamed protagonist. The main character of this futuristic nov...
F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature
F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature Kam Williams Book Review “Drawing on nearly 14,000 pages of newly released FBI files, F.B. Eyes exposes the Bu...
Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper
Freedom's Journal: The First African-American Newspaper Kam Williams Book Review “While the Constitution declares that all men are born free and equal, the wise corporation of the city of...
America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook: Over 130 Soul-Filled Recipes
America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook: Over 130 Soul-Filled Recipes Kam Williams Book Review "The Pass It Down Cookbook is filled with recipes that reflect the generations-long need to document and sh...
Boys into Men
Boys into Men Paige Turner Book Review BOYS INTO MEN: RAISING OUR AFRICAN AMERICAN TEENAGE SONS By Paige Turner An old Parliament Funkadelic album was entitled America Eats Its Young. While this se...
My Sisters’ Voices
My Sisters’ Voices Linda Watkins Book Review "And special thanks go to all those individuals who follow me in stores, call me derogatory and offensive names, and keep me from doing and achieving...
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...
Still I Rise
Still I Rise Kam Williams Book Review ’One of the invaluable features of Still I Rise, the first cartoon history of black America, is the wealth of information it provides abo...
9780764344879
9780764344879 Kam Williams Book Review “With a population of nearly half a million people, Harlem is America’s most celebrated African-American neighborhood. Its rich past and historic...
Boss of Black Brooklyn, The Life and Times of Bertram Baker
Boss of Black Brooklyn, The Life and Times of Bertram Baker Brenda M. Greene Book Review Bertram Baker was a man of his times… Like Du Bois, Bertram believed in agitating to achieve political...
Michelle Obama: Meet the First Lady
Michelle Obama: Meet the First Lady Kam Williams Book Review ’A tall 44 year-old African-American woman took her place at the podium and began her speech at the Democratic ...
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...
Black Women, Ivory Tower
Black Women, Ivory Tower Ahmad Wright Book Review The best colleges and universities in the nation promise a sense of belonging, public validation, and personal relationships that can last a lifetime...
Faith in the Fire: Wisdom for Life
Faith in the Fire: Wisdom for Life Kam Williams Book Review "Amazingly, many people of faith and members of the reading public have not heard of Gardner Taylor or his accomplishments. Publication ...
Ralph Ellison: A Biography
Ralph Ellison: A Biography Kam Williams Book Review "I know by now that all my little triumphs are in reality defeats." — Ralph Ellison, 1961 When Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) won th...
Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama
Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama Kam Williams Book Review “Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention instantly catapulted him into the national spotlight and...
Enough
Enough Kam Williams Book Review "Reparations sends a message to Americans of every other race that blacks are wards of the state because they are a broken people. Social ills in the black com...
Chasing Me to My Grave
Chasing Me to My Grave Robert Fleming Book Review This enthralling memoir is one of the most heralded books about the life, imagination, and cultural influences of an African American man who goes to...
Killing the Messenger: A Story of Radical Faith
Killing the Messenger: A Story of Radical Faith Kam Williams Book Review "When a 19 year-old member of a Black Muslim cult assassinated Chauncey Bailey in 2007—the most shocking killing...
The Future Has a Past
The Future Has a Past Thumper Book Review The Future Has A Past is the latest short story collection by author J. California Cooper. In case you don’t know, I adore J. California Cooper! I&rs...
Deliver Me From Evil
Deliver Me From Evil Idrissa Uqdah Book Review The new drama-filled novel by author Mary Monroe starts off a bit slow but by the time you get to know the main character, Christine Thurman, you ...
Sinking Saints
Sinking Saints Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Author Etta Harbin outlines the ten most important reasons that the 21st century church is on the brink of self-destruction while offering real solution...
Goony Goo-Goo and Ga-Ga Too!
Goony Goo-Goo and Ga-Ga Too! Kelly Starling Lyons Book Review Drawing inspiration from her own children, author Kia Morgan Smith has written a fun picture book about the trials and triumphs of ...
Little White Lies By Cole Riley
Little White Lies By Cole Riley Michelle Paynter Book Review Little White Lies is more than a pathetically sad and heartbreaking story of Melvin, a young, aspiring Black high school athlete, who wr...
Negro with a Hat
Negro with a Hat Thumper Book Review I’m not an average reader of biographies. I am now realizing the older I get, the more biographies and history books my reading palette finds attr...
How We Fight for Our Lives
How We Fight for Our Lives Brianna-Christine Alicea Book Review As a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from Cave Canem and Queer/Art/Mentorship, Saeed Jones is a poet and the author of...
The Water Dancer
The Water Dancer Tony Lindsay Book Review To mix magical realism with historical fiction is a bold task. To discuss the topic of family pride from the perspective of the offspring of a slave and a ma...
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...
Surviving Chaos, How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar
Surviving Chaos, How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar Carol Taylor Book Review Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace At A Beach Bar is Harold Phifer’s memoir of childhood abuse, family dysfunction, an...
Veracity and Verse
Veracity and Verse Denolyn Carroll Book Review “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for...
Bourbon Street
Bourbon Street Thumper Book Review It has been a long while since I read a book as complex and gorgeous as Bourbon Street written by Leonce Gaiter. A novel which explores the spectrum of inner na...
Phat Girlz
Phat Girlz Kam Williams phat_g31.jpg Film Review Plus-Sized Sisters Find Acceptance in Africa in Cross-Cultural Romantic Comedy Phat Girlz Rated PG-13 for sex, expletives, and crude humo...
I Hate Muscular Dystrophy: Loving a Child with a Life-Altering Disease
I Hate Muscular Dystrophy: Loving a Child with a Life-Altering Disease Kam Williams Book Review "This is a personal story of a family’s ability to love and support each other through the...
Kwanzaa: From Holiday to Everyday
Kwanzaa: From Holiday to Everyday Kam Williams Book Review ’One of the reasons Kwanzaa has been widely embraced is that it speaks directly to the need many feel for a self-determi...
Dark Midnight When I Rise
Dark Midnight When I Rise Paige Turner Book Review The history of blacks in America remains a vast uncharted territory. While the contributions of mainstream cultures have been duly recorded, the e...
Gonna Lay Down My Burdens
Gonna Lay Down My Burdens Thumper Book Review On a rainy night, Desiree Sheffield calls Carmen Taylor (on the eve of Carmen’s wedding to Burl,) to come get her after another violent fight with...
When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist
When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: My Life as a Hip-Hop Feminist Lynne d. Johnson Book Review Hip-hop has intrinsically woven itself into the fabric of Americana. The culture, music, icons, and p...
Brooklyn’s Finest
Brooklyn’s Finest Kam Williams images/img23.jpg Film Review Flawed NYPD Officers Featured as "Brooklyn’s Finest" Brooklyn's Finest Rated R for nudity, graphic sexuality, pe...
The Reckoning
The Reckoning Thumper Book Review Randall Robinson, the author of The Debt, has written a new insightful book, The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe To Each Other. In this volume, Robinson examines the cl...
Round & Round Together
Round & Round Together Kam Williams Book Review “About four months before the March on Washington, Dr. Martin Luther King was arrested during demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. While in j...
Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?
Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There? Kam Williams Book Review "Thoughtlessness is the new manners, and I’ve got to say I don’t like it… Somehow, so many little pieces of court...
Life Is a Game
Life Is a Game Kam Williams Book Review ’The choices we make determine our destiny and whether success or disaster is achieved. We either elevate to greatness or descend to obs...
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...
For Every One
For Every One Vanessa Vanzie Book Review The title of the book, For Everyone, by Jason Reynolds states exactly who the book is for; that means it is written for you and for me. The timely message was...
Don’t Drop the MIC
Don’t Drop the MIC Denolyn Carroll Book Review In Don’t Drop the Mic, renowned pastor, orator, and #1 New York Times bestselling author Bishop T. D. Jakes puts a new spin on the notion of the b...
If My Hair Had a Voice
If My Hair Had a Voice Lisa Y? Wilson Book Review When another comb loses the battle with Kimya’s natural coils, feeling shame she apologizes and asks, “Can’t we just straighten it?...
My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy
My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy Ahmad Wright Book Review My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy by Randal Maurice Jelks is self-described as “a commentary on select Langston essays, poems,...
Digging
Digging Robert Fleming Book Review The literary legacy of award-winning writer and poet Amiri Baraka continues to thrive as he releases another new book, Digging: The Afro-American Soul Of ...
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler Robert Fleming Book Review { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Review", "headline": "Review of Positive Obsession: The...
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler Robert Fleming Book Review { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Review", "headline": "Review of Positive Obsession: The...
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...
The God Who Begat a Jackal
The God Who Begat a Jackal Thumper Book Review The great author of American letters, Albert Murray, wrote in his recently published book From The Briarpatch, ’The goal of the serious storytelle...
Down Home with the Neelys
Down Home with the Neelys Kam Williams Book Review ’Hey, everyone, first of all, I want to thank you for reading our book and watching our show. We had no idea what we were g...
Sucka Free Love
Sucka Free Love Kam Williams Book Review ’The goal of this book is to demonstrate with real life examples the many ways we shoot ourselves in the foot in our quest for love’ We al...
Beasts of No Nation
Beasts of No Nation Robert Fleming Book Review As John A. Williams, that black titan of letters, often says ’there can never be enough political novels written by our community,’ the num...
Player Haters
Player Haters Thumper Book Review No one writes drama like Carl Weber. I don’t know how he does it. He keeps throwing out books that I swallow whole with no salt or pepper while having a croo...
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...
Jesus and the Abolitionists
Jesus and the Abolitionists Shaundale Rénā Book Review At first glance, I was drawn to Jesus and the Abolitionists: How Anarchist Christianity Empowers the People because of its eye-catching cover. I...
An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy
An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy Ralph Ellison Book Review Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma is not an easy book for an American Negro to review. Not because he mig...
Adam by Adam
Adam by Adam Thumper Book Review ’Never let anyone keep you contained and never let anyone keep your voice silent.’ -Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. to a young Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. If I were...
Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
Adam by Adam: The Autobiography of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Thumper Book Review ’Never let anyone keep you contained and never let anyone keep your voice silent.’ -Adam Clayton Powell, ...
Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an an American Cuisine
Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an an American Cuisine Kam Williams Book Review From frontier cabins to plantation houses to the White House, from steamboat galleys and Pullman kitchens to pub...
Social Crisis and Social Demoralization
Social Crisis and Social Demoralization Kam Williams Book Review ’American race relations are closely tied up with social status. Race relations’ reflect the economic and social force...
Remembering Roots: How an American Classic Transformed the World
Remembering Roots: How an American Classic Transformed the World Robert Fleming Book Review Unfortunately, there were efforts to demean the late Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family whe...
The Meaning of Michelle
The Meaning of Michelle Kam Williams Book Review “Michelle Obama is unlike any other First Lady in American History. From her first moment on the public stage, she has challenged traditional Am...
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...
The African-American Criminal Justice Guide
The African-American Criminal Justice Guide Kam Williams Book Review “As a defense attorney, I spend a lot of time counseling young African-American men and women about making better lives fo...
God and Race in American Politics
God and Race in American Politics Kam Williams Book Review "Together, race and religion make up, not only the nation’s deepest and most enduring moral problem, but also its broadest and mos...