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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, ...
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...
Belle
Belle Kam Williams belle.jpg Film Review Belle In Theaters: May 2, 2014 Limited Rated PG for smoking, mature themes and ethnic insensitivity. Running time: 104 minutes Drama Directed By: Amma As...
I Wish I Had A Red Dress
I Wish I Had A Red Dress Thumper Book Review I’m going to be upfront. The review will be short and sour. I Wish I Had A Red Dress, Pearl Cleage’s new novel, we return to Idlewood, Michiga...
Killer of Sheep
Killer of Sheep Kam Williams killer27.jpg Film Review Killer of Sheep Click to order via Amazon Unrated Black & White Running time: 81 minutes Studio: New Yorker Video/Miles...
The Deal
The Deal Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Money, Money, Money, Money…Money! Who wouldn't jump at an offer of five million dollars, free and clear? The main characters in Victoria Christopher...
An Illuminated Life
An Illuminated Life Kam Williams Book Review ’Princeton University was a particularly interesting place for Belle to first be on her own and living as white… Princeton was c...
Alex Haley and the Books that Changed a Nation
Alex Haley and the Books that Changed a Nation Adam Henig Book Review In Alex Haley and the Books that Changed a Nation, Robert J. Norrell, professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxvi...
Sankofa University: Studying African-Centered History and Culture
Sankofa University: Studying African-Centered History and Culture Robert Fleming Book Review Dr. Burnett Kwadwo Gallman’s Sankofa University: Studying African-Centered History And Culture, is a...
The Cutting Season: A Novel
The Cutting Season: A Novel Emanuel Carpenter Book Review Attica Locke’s (Black Water Rising) latest novel, The Cutting Season, takes place on a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. Though the s...
A Gardin Wedding
A Gardin Wedding Richard Murray Book Review “When we really fell for each other, the rules we were playing by changed.” These wise words from Martha, a character in A Gardin Wedding by Ro...
Sellout
Sellout Robert Fleming Book Review This debut novel, written by James Lewis, deals with the thorny issue of interracial dating from every side, rendered with narrative precision and emotional det...
I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang
I Dreamt I Was in Heaven - The Rampage of the Rufus Buck Gang Alvin Romer Book Review Quick! Can you tell me if you knew that there was a multi-racial teenaged gang terrorizing the west? Only once i...
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer Kam Williams anita_20.jpg Film Review DVD Revisits Career of Recently-Deceased Jazz Great - Blue eyed soul at its very best! ...
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 ...
Watercolored Pearls
Watercolored Pearls Idrissa Uqdah Book Review The latest offering by, Christian fiction author, Stacy Hawkins Adams is about three female friends whose stories were captured in Adam’s first ...
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...
Jake the Fake Goes for Laughs
Jake the Fake Goes for Laughs Vanessa Vanzie Book Review In general, kids enjoy a little something funny and wacky in the books they read to keep them interested until the very end. There is no way t...
Baggage Claim
Baggage Claim Kam Williams baggage-claim.jpg Film Review Baggage Claim In Theaters: Sep 27, 2013 Limited Rated PG-13 for profanity and sexuality Running time: 96 minutes Comedy Directed By: Dav...
Womanish Theology
Womanish Theology Eryka Parker Book Review “How differently would Black girls see the world or themselves had they [been] represented and treated as imago Dei [created in the image and likeness...
Ingleside: Based on a True Story
Ingleside: Based on a True Story Robert Fleming Book Review As a former veteran newspaper reporter on the crime beat, I can smell a homicide when it’s authentic and this book is bursting at the...
Not a Day Goes By
Not a Day Goes By Paige Turner Book Review Lifestyles of the Bitch and Famous If you enjoy the big payback and revenge, then popular writer E. Lynn Harris’ is "da man", and his lat...
Seven Sisters And A Brother
Seven Sisters And A Brother Denolyn Carroll Book Review History has recorded many instances of struggles for varied rights by a people haunted by the legacies of slavery. Yet, too often some such o...
The Black Chicago Renaissance
The Black Chicago Renaissance Kam Williams Book Review “Beginning in the 1930s and lasting into the 1950s, black Chicago experienced a cultural renaissance that rivaled and, some argued, exce...
Shackling Water
Shackling Water Thumper Book Review I awoke and discovered myself in the middle of an improvisational jazz solo of great intensity, dexterity, color and depth. I knew not the melody, the song, the st...
Three Days Before The Shooting…
Three Days Before The Shooting… Robert Fleming Book Review When legendary African American writer Ralph Ellison died in 1994, everyone who loves good books mourned at his passing and wondered i...
The Rebel’s Clinic
The Rebel’s Clinic Robert Fleming Book Review For decades now, the writings of noted psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon, who died in 1961, have been essential reading for anyone who wanted to ...
Cash Crop
Cash Crop Kam Williams images/cashcropmovie.jpg Film Review Decriminalization Documentary Extols Virtues of Legalizing Marijuana Cash Crop Unrated Running time: 84 Minutes Distributor: Sier...
Triangular Road: A Memoir
Triangular Road: A Memoir Thumper Book Review I don't know how I came to be aware of Paule Marshall’s new book, Triangular Road: a Memoir. Maybe it was the same still small voic...
The Lady
The Lady Linda Dominique Grosvenor Book Review T.D. Jakes has a way of knowing what women want, and need. With the well received "Woman Thou Art Loosed," and the follow up "Daddy Love ...
The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials
The Nat Turner Insurrection Trials Emanuel Carpenter Book Review Was Nat Turner a hero or a savage? After reading the new book from legal scholar Walter L. Gordon III, you may change your mind abou...
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...
Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings
Secret Mysteries of America’s Beginnings Kam Williams /reviews/images/secret-of-americas-beginnings.jpg Film Review Documentary Discusses Influence of Fraternities on Founding Fathers and Beyond Se...
The End of Poverty
The End of Poverty Kam Williams images/img2A1.jpg Film Review Globalization Documentary Discusses Paradox of Poverty in Era of Unparalleled Wealth The End of Poverty? Unrated ...
Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature
Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature Robert Fleming Book Review When literary icon Toni Morrison died in August, 2019, world literature lost a r...
Judge Not!
Judge Not! Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Waiting For Justice To Prevail Audrey Forrest Carter has penned a great sequel to her well-received debut novel, The Wages of Sin. In Judge Not! readers f...
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...
A Woman’s Revenge
A Woman’s Revenge Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Three Women Scorned Just looking at the cover of this book, I wasn't sure if it was really Christian fiction. This anthology of three stories wr...
Walking Among The Kudzu
Walking Among The Kudzu Emanuel Carpenter Book Review In H. Victoria Hargro Atkerson's latest book, "Walking Among the Kudzu," readers are taken on the journey of the life of Shelby ...
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
Gathering Blossoms Under Fire Robert Fleming Book Review Nobody will find the controversial writer, Alice Walker neutral, because of her fierce, unorthodox views. As an award-winning novelist, essayi...
Children of the Waters
Children of the Waters Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Blood Ties, Family Lies Carleen Brice has returned to the literary scene with her second novel, Children of the Waters and she’s ...
Momma: Gone
Momma: Gone Tony Lindsay Book Review Nina Foxx’s personal story Momma: Gone is full of literary surprises. The reader’s expectations and predictions that are garnered from the story-line ...
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...
Daughter
Daughter Jayne Cubbage Book Review The novel, Daughter is a wonderfully crafted book and a smashing follow up to Asha Bandele’s first book, The Prisoner’s Wife. In this suspenseful a...
Telling It Like It Is: The Remarkable Life Experiences of My Aunt Edna
Telling It Like It Is: The Remarkable Life Experiences of My Aunt Edna Carol Taylor Book Review Telling It Like It Is, is equal parts historical biography, personal recollections, family memories, an...
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...
Virginia Hamilton: Speeches
Virginia Hamilton: Speeches Kam Williams Book Review ’In the 35 years between the publication of her first book and her death in 2002, Virginia Hamilton earned a place of honor in the p...
Tangled Dreams
Tangled Dreams Kirkus Book Review A fantastic example of ancestry-driven fiction. In Friedman’s novel, a cultural anthropology professor at a crossroads receives a grant that draws her back into h...
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...
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...
Black Swan
Black Swan Rondall Brasher Book Review When Poetry Takes Wing Black Swan by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon was published in 2002. This lapse of time annoys me because I somehow missed this rare "lot...
Palmares
Palmares Robert Fleming Book Review No less than the esteemed late novelist Toni Morrison, the chief editorial gatekeeper of Random House, was stunned by the narrative power of Gayl Jones’ firs...
Fifth Born
Fifth Born Thumper Book Review My copy of Fifth Born, the debut novel by Zelda Lockhart, came by way of this year’s Book Expo America convention (BEA). I met Ms. Lockhart and her son at The B...
Let Us Descend
Let Us Descend Donna Hill Book Review Acclaimed writer Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award winner for Sing, Unburied, Sing and Salvage the Bones, returns with her latest, Let Us Descend, a haun...
Breastlessness
Breastlessness Jayne Cubbage Book Review Breastlessness by Nicole Bryant is both memoir and breast cancer resource guide. In the first half of the book, Bryant shares her own experience with the di...
Priscilla: Engaging in the Game of Politics
Priscilla: Engaging in the Game of Politics Robert Fleming Book Review In this novel, Priscilla: Engaging in the Game of Politics, Dr. M. J. Simms-Maddox weaves the fabric of her life with the narrat...
The Memory Librarian
The Memory Librarian Robert Fleming Book Review When I think of singer-actor-fashion icon Janelle Monae, the word eclectic comes to mind. She is everywhere in the media, on every platform. Along with...
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...
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...
Such a Pretty Face
Such a Pretty Face Emanuel Carpenter Book Review Mia Sanchez has issues. Her waistline is increasing. Her co-worker is jealous of her success and may be out to get her. And to top it off, her live-i...
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 ...
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...
Shayla Sweet and Her Magical Pen
Shayla Sweet and Her Magical Pen Denolyn Carroll Book Review “…And a little child shall lead them…” (Isaiah 11:6 NKJV). While spending summer break at her grandmother Nani&...
Where Wild Peaches Grow
Where Wild Peaches Grow Eryka Parker Book Review When heartbreak and familial betrayal send Nona “Peaches” Davenport running from her home of Natchez, Mississippi as a teenager, neither s...
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...
Come by Here
Come by Here Thumper Book Review I found a pearl when I happened upon the remarkable author Clarence Major. I discovered Clarence Major by way of an anthology, titled After Hours edited by Robert ...
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?...
Who Does She Think She Is
Who Does She Think She Is Thumper Book Review Demons and condemned souls must be having snowball fights in Hell because I not only read another Benilde Little book; I actually liked it. I know, I kn...
Going Home
Going Home Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Home Is Where The Heart Is Evelyn Palfrey is an author who writes romance novels. The unique thing about her books is that she writes romance for the "...
IDOLeyes
IDOLeyes Idrissa Uqdah Book Review A Singer’s Life Changing American Idol Experience Mandisa Hundley may well go down in history as the most talked about American Idol participant who di...
All I Need to Get By
All I Need to Get By Thumper Book Review I have just finished reading All I Need to Get By, the debut novel by Sophfronia Scott. I am taking a moment to pause and collect my thoughts in order to ...
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...
Just As I Am By Cicely Tyson
Just As I Am By Cicely Tyson Robert Fleming Book Review When I was a teen sweeping sawdust at the butchery, where I worked after school hours, my uncle hipped me to jazz and Bird, Monk, Prez, and La...
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 ...
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Becoming by Michelle Obama Amanda Robinson Book Review Being a Black woman in America right now comes with a great deal of scrutiny. We are praised for our diversity, yet simultaneously cast aside fo...
Rooftop Diva
Rooftop Diva Idrissa Uqdah Book Review D. T. Pollard’s novel, Rooftop Diva became an Essence bestseller novel in 2007. This fictionalized account put a different spin on a survivor of H...
High Waters
High Waters Thumper Book Review High Waters, a novel by Suzon Tropez, is a novel that I am unsure as to what the storyline or the point of the novel is. I think it is a novel about an older black ...
A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks
A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks Neoma Nwasike Book Review Gwendolyn Brooks was a very influential African American poet who became the first Black writer to win a Pulitzer Prize award (Poetry). In the ch...
Held
Held Idrissa Uqdah Book Review Jehovah Rapha, The Lord Who Heals Author Leslie Haskin has written a follow-up to her best seller, Between Heaven and Ground Zero, an account of her experiences...
Moon
Moon Thumper Book Review Allow me to state up front that I am a huge fan of Jewell Parker Rhodes; have been since I read one of her earlier novels, Magic City. I got extremely excited when I ...
Thank You, Omu!
Thank You, Omu! Neoma Nwasike Book Review How important is community to you? Is it at the epicenter of your heart, and do the people who make up your unique and wonderful community, allow you to thri...
Moses and the Monster and Miss Anne
Moses and the Monster and Miss Anne Thumper Book Review I admit that the things that form my initial impressions of a book are somewhat shallow. I love a good book cover, whether it is pictures or ...
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 ...
The Last Love Letter
The Last Love Letter Robert Fleming Book Review Amanda Easton, the author of The Last Love Letter, has a history of letter writing going back to her college days when she sometimes said the...
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past
My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past Kam Williams Book Review “When Jennifer Teege, a German-Nigerian woman, happened to pluck a library book from...
Blues From Down Deep
Blues From Down Deep Thumper Book Review Reviewed by Thumper Blues From Down Deep is the second novel I have read by Gwynne Forster, the first being Once In A Lifetime which I enjoyed. I was not pl...
Distant Lover
Distant Lover Thumper Book Review "Ooooo, she makes me SICK!! She does this to me every time!" I heard this from my good friend Steve right after I said hello when I answered the phone. A...
Sulwe
Sulwe Shafika Burke Book Review Do our young black girls have enough willpower to face whatever life throws at them? Do they look at themselves and see beauty, or the lack of? Have we successfully co...
Bamboozled by Jesus
Bamboozled by Jesus Carol Taylor Book Review Part self-help, part comedic memoir, part inspirational and motivational how-to, Yvonne Orji’s Bamboozled by Jesus is heartfelt and relatable advice...
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...
Child
Child Kam Williams Book Review “In this wise and funny memoir, Ylonda Gault Caviness describes her journey to the realization that all the parenting advice she was obsessively devouring, as...
The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker
The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker Thumper Book Review The World Has Changed: Conversation with Alice Walker edited by Rudolph Byrd is a type of book that I had not seen befor...
Life AFTER the Down Low
Life AFTER the Down Low Carol Taylor Book Review Life After the Down Low is Ingrid M. Ellis’ honest and harrowing account of her life after finding out that her husband, Bobby, the man she thou...
One Day I Saw a Black King
One Day I Saw a Black King Thumper Book Review Earlier this year, J. D. Mason had me singing her praises for her wonderful novel, And on the Eighth Day She Rested. Now I am at the mike again, ready ...
Every Bitter Thing Sweet
Every Bitter Thing Sweet Tiffany M. Davis Book Review Every Bitter Thing Sweet picks up where A Thirst For Rain ends. While this is the story of Odile and Rory, Ms. Carrington continues her portrayal...
What A Woman’s Gotta Do
What A Woman’s Gotta Do Thumper Book Review Now this was a fascinating book. What A Woman’s Gotta Do is a fascinating book that successfully weaved together the spiritual, science, and my...
Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African-American Identity
Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African-American Identity Kam Williams Book Review "In this book, I will not detail every pathological condition that ever existed in African-American...
The Summer of my Fifteenth Year
The Summer of my Fifteenth Year Robert Fleming Book Review There are so many gems to be discovered in independent publishing. Every now and then, you come across the book that makes your mind sit up ...
No Surrender
No Surrender Robert Fleming Book Review When news reached me about the death of renowned poetess, Ai, I knew that I must write something about her and her unwavering lyrical examination of the hu...
I Love My People
I Love My People Robert Fleming Book Review Lovingly crafted with an eye for substance and content, scholar Kim Singleton was determined with her new book, I Love My People. As a “race woman,&r...