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Sister Betty Says I Do
Sister Betty Says I Do Pat G’Orge Walker Excerpt Chapter 1 One year later… Moments earlier the sun had slowly rose on this sure-to-be blazing hot Saturday morning. For much of her adult ...
Unbossed: How Black Girls Are Leading the Way
Unbossed: How Black Girls Are Leading the Way Helon Habila and Kadija Sesay Excerpt Chapter 1 When she was just five years old, Ssanyu Lukoma fell in love with a book called Rosa, an inspiring chi...
The Immortality Of Influence
The Immortality Of Influence Salome Thomas-El Excerpt Foreword by Will Smith If you finish this book and are not inspired to immediately go out and effect change in your community, then you w...
Author: The Portraits of Beowulf Sheehan
Author: The Portraits of Beowulf Sheehan Beowulf Sheehan Excerpt Photographing Gregory Pardlo, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, at his home was an exercise in seeing love in the tactile. ...
WHEN MINORITIES LEAD IN AMERICA: A Black Theologians Political Journey
WHEN MINORITIES LEAD IN AMERICA: A Black Theologians Political Journey Herman J. Fountain Jr. Excerpt Growing up in the fifties in Louisville, Kentucky, I wondered how much I was like the other kids ...
I Stand Accused
I Stand Accused Monica Anderson Excerpt I drove Interstate 20 West at eighty miles per hour. I slowed to seventy at the infamous speed traps. Then, I put the pedal to the metal again.&nbs...
Lifelines: The Black Book Of Proverbs
Lifelines: The Black Book Of Proverbs Askhari Johnson Hodari and Yvonne Mccalla Sobers Excerpt Introduction The tongue of Egyptian experience has the most truth. A lie runs in Cuba only until th...
Haint Blue
Haint Blue Katherine Dempsey Excerpt Go On Girl! Book Club’s 2021 Unpublished Writers Award Winner Haint BlueChapter One March 2021 “My brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rus...
Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter
Notes of Artistic Freedom Fighter Marvin X Excerpt INTRODUCTION By Dr. Nathan Hare With the return of “white nationalism” to the international stage and the White House and new th...
Food and the City
Food and the City Ina Yalof Excerpt Alexander SmallsThe Cecil Daylight floods his Harlem apartment, an eclectic space crammed with old and new mementos from a well-traveled, well-lived life. The...
Where to Choose: A Novel
Where to Choose: A Novel Penny Mickelbury Excerpt Chapter Four Late-morning sun shone directly down on the purple and lilac and pink and white bougainvillea; shone easily through the tops of to...
The Future Has a Past
The Future Has a Past J. California Cooper Excerpt A Shooting Star Now, you don’t know me. And, I know that you know that nobody knows everything. But a person does have to go by whatever ...
Brothers, Lust, and Love: Thoughts on Manhood, Sex, and Romance
Brothers, Lust, and Love: Thoughts on Manhood, Sex, and Romance William July II Excerpt SBF Seeking Mr. Right. Must be 6’3", 215, have a mustache, degree in law or medicine from Ivy Leagu...
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle Chris Hedges Excerpt Now the death of God combined with the perfection of the image has brought us to a whole new state of expe...
To Find You
To Find You Cerece Rennie Murphy Excerpt Part I: In The Beginning I wait for him here, at the place where the night sky and the earth become lovers. In the tall grass of our homeland, between two k...
A Letter for My Mother
A Letter for My Mother Nina Foxx Excerpt Nina Foxx’s Letter: A Letter to My Once Mother-in-Law Charlenne, The doctors say that it won’t be long now. Your son just called and told m...
Adultery
Adultery Paulo Coelho Excerpt Every morning, when I open my eyes to the so-Âcalled “new day,” I feel like closing them again, staying in bed, and not getting up. But I can’t do t...
Pieces from Life’s Crazy Quilt
Pieces from Life’s Crazy Quilt Marvin V. Arnett Excerpt When my mother saw the smiles on our faces, she heaved a sigh of relief. When she asked my father what he though of my teacher, he answer...
Chicken on a Leash: Lessons in Strength of Mind
Chicken on a Leash: Lessons in Strength of Mind Dorothea Grimes-Frederick Excerpt Even Dogs Cry August 25, 196 Dear Diary, The only thing bad about living next door to a rent-subsidize...
The Messenger Reader
The Messenger Reader Sondra Kathryn Wilson Excerpt In this short story, Fenton Johnson introduces the reader to Elizabeth (Eliza) Jan, an African-American servant. Liza, a Southerner, finds herself w...
Into Africa: A Personal Journey
Into Africa: A Personal Journey Yvonne Blackwood Excerpt “On Sunday afternoon Adamson and I returned to Labadi Beach. I did a double take when we entered the gate. The empty stretch of beach I&...
In My Family’s Shadow: Sister of Sports Phenomenon Michael Jordan
In My Family’s Shadow: Sister of Sports Phenomenon Michael Jordan Deloris E. Jordan Excerpt Ending eight years after it first began and five years after losing my virginity to my father, it scares me...
A Day Late and a Dollar Short
A Day Late and a Dollar Short Terry McMillan Excerpt Way I see it can’t nobody tell me nothing I don’t already know. At least not when it comes to my kids. They all grown, but in a whol...
Like Sweet Buttermilk
Like Sweet Buttermilk S.F. Powell Excerpt …Viv entered their sitting room, where she lay down to think, pulling the afghan strewn across the loveseat around her. More thinking, however, didn...
Harmattan Rain
Harmattan Rain Ayesha Harruna Attah Excerpt Ernest sat in the driver’s seat of the Pontiac tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Lizzie packed Akua Afriyie, Naa Tsoo, Kwame and Ernest ...
The Unmaking Of The Black Man
The Unmaking Of The Black Man Gibran Tariq and Gregory S. Jones Excerpt THE OTHER END OF THE STICK The social revolution for the control of the black image had a profound impact on the sistas as w...
Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems
Black Wings & Blind Angels: Poems Professor Griff Excerpt Breaking Karma #5 i It is like a scene in a play. His bald spot shines upward between dark tufts of hair. We are sitting in a pool of...
The Man Who Cried I Am
The Man Who Cried I Am John A. Williams Excerpt FOREWORD by Graham Hodges The publication of John A. Williams’ fourth novel, The Man Who Cried I Am, in October, 1967, caused cr...
Cane
Cane Jean Toomer Excerpt Introduction to Cane As it appeared in the Perennial Classic edition copyright 1969 by Arna Bontemps LOOKING back on the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s,...
Wonderful Ethiopians Of The Ancient Cushite Empire, Book 1
Wonderful Ethiopians Of The Ancient Cushite Empire, Book 1 Drusilla Dunjee Houston Excerpt The minds of men today are stirred with eager questionings about the origin of civilization and about ...
Unsung Heroes
Unsung Heroes Elizabeth Ross Haynes Excerpt In casting about for stories to read to a little friend, one day I drew from the Library "My Life and Times" by Frederick Douglass. I knew that t...
Black Man’s Version to Exhale
Black Man’s Version to Exhale Akie F. Davis Excerpt Introduction We know all too well of the frustrating encounters that many Black women have had when dealing with Black men. However, little h...
A leap of Faith
A leap of Faith Anita L. Helm Excerpt PREFACE For some time now, I have wanted to write a story about my life—I’m still living, so this is my capture of my first half. I hope the stories...
My Brown Baby
My Brown Baby Denene Millner Excerpt Chapter 1 My Escort into Motherhood I WAS A YOUNG REPORTER WHEN I MET HER—full of energy, I had a flat stomach, still 120 pounds soaking wet, still ea...
Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ with Mother Nature
Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ with Mother Nature Dick Gregory Excerpt 1Warning: The Author Has Determined That Not Reading the Following Pages Is Dangerous to Your Health ...
A Promised Land (Deluxe Signed Edition)
A Promised Land (Deluxe Signed Edition) Barack Obama Excerpt Preface I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidency—after Michelle and I had boarded Air Force One for the l...
A Promised Land
A Promised Land Barack Obama Excerpt Preface I began writing this book shortly after the end of my presidency—after Michelle and I had boarded Air Force One for the last time and traveled we...
Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008
Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Excerpt Introduction Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Ind...
Grandpa! Tell Us a Story Drinking from Ancient Wells the Story of the Game Black People Play/Trilogy Book One: The Game’s Soul
Grandpa! Tell Us a Story Drinking from Ancient Wells the Story of the Game Black People Play/Trilogy Book One: The Game’s Soul Orchester Benjamin Excerpt If you dig deep en...
Zone One: A Novel
Zone One: A Novel Colson Whitehead Excerpt A 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Nominated Book He always wanted to live in New York. His Uncle Lloyd lived downtown on Lafayette, and in the long s...
Alain Locke: An Introduction
Alain Locke: An Introduction Charles Molesworth Excerpt ALAIN LOCKE: AN INTRODUCTION(Part 1) Alain Locke established his intellectual brilliance by a lifetime of study ...
On The Shoulders Of Giants: My Journey Through The Harlem Renaissance
On The Shoulders Of Giants: My Journey Through The Harlem Renaissance Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Excerpt "Some Technicolor Bazaar" How Harlem Became the Center of the Universe Harlem!&helli...
Foreword Justice for Marcus Garvey
Foreword Justice for Marcus Garvey Julius Garvey Excerpt Foreword Excerpt by Ta-Nehisi Coates “I grew up in a household where Malcolm X was Jesus, and I guess that would make Garvey God. Gar...
All I Want For Christmas
All I Want For Christmas Joyce A. Brown, Princess F.L. Gooden, Terri Ann Johnson, Sonia Johnston, Patricia Woodside, Cryssy Dee, Candy Jackson, and others Excerpt An excerpt from Terri Ann Johnson&rs...
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora Sheree Renée Thomas Excerpt The Comet by W. E. B. Du Bois (1920) He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching th...
Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin
Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin Carlos Moreno Excerpt Introduction and Chapter 9 – B. C. Franklin “Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as yo...
Operation Sisterhood
Operation Sisterhood Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich Excerpt 1 So it really was a dark and stormy night, and it figured, thought Bo. Of course it was a dark and stormy night. Of course it was. Ok...
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION Khristi Lauren Adams Excerpt INTRODUCTION The turn of the millennium has seen an upsurge in new and young African writers and this has been particularly noticeable in terms of the num...
The Selling of Joseph
The Selling of Joseph Dieudonne Mayi Excerpt Dedication To African slaves in the Americas, Caribbean, and Europe, the silent and unknown black slave… Your treatment was so in...
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2 Kalisha Buckhanon Excerpt ONE MARCH 2021 Right around time things started reopening, the late March thaw brought a lifeless girl up to the tail end of the Grays...
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2
Running to Fall — Chapters 1 & 2 Kalisha Buckhanon Excerpt ONE MARCH 2021 Right around time things started reopening, the late March thaw brought a lifeless girl up to the tail end of the Grays...
The Truth About Men: The Secret Side Of The Opposite Sex
The Truth About Men: The Secret Side Of The Opposite Sex Ian Smith Excerpt THE FIRST PRINCIPLETHE SUBTLE ART OF HOOKING US There’s a big misperception that men never want to be in commit...
The Quest of the Silver Fleece
The Quest of the Silver Fleece W.E.B. Du Bois Excerpt The entire novel is available at Project Gutenberg OneDREAMS Night fell. The red waters of the swamp grew sinister and sullen. The tall pines...
Chapter One
Chapter One Catherine Joy White Excerpt Silence This thread of gold that ties me to my mother, my grandmother, and the women who came before looks a lot like the color purple. Like the purple hibi...
A Voice from the South
A Voice from the South Excerpt In the clash and clatter of our American Conflict, it has been said that the South remains silent. Like the Sphinx, she inspires vociferous disputation, but hersel...
Obsessive Intimacies
Obsessive Intimacies Yani Excerpt This nigga must’ve either lost his fucking mind or he thinks I’m still the same dumb and naïve Tierra from high-school and college. I know muthafucking ...
The Angry Ones
The Angry Ones John A. Williams Excerpt You remember a lot of things about a trip across America. You remember the sandstone rocks reared above red and brown plains, the twisted, fiercely shaped arro...
Waiting in Vain
Waiting in Vain Colin Channer Excerpt On the day he met Sylvia, Fire woke up in Blanche’s arms with a numbness in his soul. It was his ninetieth day of celibacy, and the night before had almo...
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2 David H. Rothman Excerpt CHAPTER ONE: THE DEATHS OF PAPA AND MAMA BOULE-BOULE People called me “The Fix-It Boy.” I repaired broken radios and TVs around ou...
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2
Drone Child Chapters 1 and 2 David H. Rothman Excerpt CHAPTER ONE: THE DEATHS OF PAPA AND MAMA BOULE-BOULE People called me “The Fix-It Boy.” I repaired broken radios and TVs around ou...
A Thug’s Redemption 3: The Wrath of Andre
A Thug’s Redemption 3: The Wrath of Andre Yani Excerpt Tiffany disconnected the phone and paced the living room. Jamal had a second phone with only one number in it that went to a man who seemed to ...
The Colored Garden
The Colored Garden O.H. Bennett Excerpt From Chapter One: Meeting the Gardener In the middle of Kentucky farmland where a cornfield of withered brown stalks meets the grass of a cow pasture there ...
Cowards and Angels
Cowards and Angels Aileen Muhammad Excerpt Mia (From Cowards and Angels) Death before dishonor. An embrace like no other. A fair exchange. An honored declaration that life’s sagging hypocr...
An Approach to Style: The 21 Reminders
An Approach to Style: The 21 Reminders William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White Excerpt In the final chapter of The Elements of Style, E. B. White provides a list of guidelines to help writers develop a di...
Wake Up Happy: The Dream Big, Win Big Guide to Transforming Your Life
Wake Up Happy: The Dream Big, Win Big Guide to Transforming Your Life Michael Strahan and Veronica Chambers Excerpt WHAT I LEARNED FROM HERSCHEL WALKER Rule #1 Help can—and will—c...
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way Connie Briscoe, Lolita Files, and Anita Bunkley Excerpt The brass headboard thumped against the wall as he rolled off of her and onto his b...
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way
You Only Get Better: Celebrating Life Every Step of the Way Connie Briscoe, Lolita Files, and Anita Bunkley Excerpt The brass headboard thumped against the wall as he rolled off of her and onto his b...
Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love
Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love Zane Excerpt Chapter One: Sexual Addiction Sexual addiction is a topic very near and dear to my heart. When I first decided to write my novel Add...
Coming Forth by Day
Coming Forth by Day Kakwasi Somadhi Excerpt Excerpt from Chapter Seven When Loretha showed up with Solly that hot July evening, the village was already crowded. Men and women with Afros as big as ...
Black Girl You Are Atlas
Black Girl You Are Atlas Renée Watson Excerpt at•las | \ ’at-les \ from Merriam-Webster Dictionary 1 capitalized: a Titan who for his part in the Titans’ revolt against the gods ...
Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to Peace
Faith in the Valley: Lessons for Women on the Journey to Peace Iyanla Vanzant Excerpt Chapter 1 The Valley of Light Teaches us the lesson of stillness, through the imposition of a state of so...
Sometimes I Cry
Sometimes I Cry Linda Dominique Grosvenor Excerpt I have never been more anxious in my entire life than I am right now. I’m sitting at my desk with an hour or more to kill and a list of things...
Life, Love & Loneliness
Life, Love & Loneliness Crystal Lacey Winslow Excerpt CHAPTER 3 - LYRIC DEVANEY At 11:00 am sharp, Richard’s black Mercedes- Benz arrived. His driver got out and opened the door and Richard ...
My Love, My Love: or The Peasant Girl
My Love, My Love: or The Peasant Girl Rosa Guy Excerpt Chapter One On that island where rivers run deep, where the sea sparkling in the sun earns it the name Jewel of the Antilles, the tops of t...
Prince and Me: His #1 Fan: My Minneapolis Memories
Prince and Me: His #1 Fan: My Minneapolis Memories Andrea Foy Excerpt NEW YEAR’S EVE, PART 1 I spent New Year’s Eve 1992 in Minneapolis with friends I met from the Controversy Fan Clu...
In the Still of the Night: Personal Safety for Women
In the Still of the Night: Personal Safety for Women Andrea Foy Excerpt Une Nuit de Paris\ “How did I get myself into this mess?” I thought. There I was, riding on the Metro out of Par...
You Are Free: Stories
You Are Free: Stories Danzy Senna Excerpt What’s the Matter with Helga and Dave? When I married Hewitt, I didn’t realize — among other things — that I would become a member...
Of One Blood
Of One Blood Pauline Hopkins Excerpt Chapter One The recitations were over for the day. It was the first week in November and it had rained about every day the entire week; now freezing temperatur...
The Water Dancer
The Water Dancer Ta-Nehisi Coates Excerpt And I could only have seen her there on the stone bridge, a dancer wreathed in ghostly blue, because that was the way they would have taken her back when I w...
Chapters 1 and 2
Chapters 1 and 2 Harlow Giles Unger Excerpt Chapters 1 and 2 Chapter 1College Is Not for Everyone So your kid says he or she wants to go to college. “All my friends are going!&rdq...
God in the Ghetto: A Prophetic Word Revisited
God in the Ghetto: A Prophetic Word Revisited William Augustus Jones Jr. Excerpt Chapter 1: The System “The System” refers implicitly to the American trinity of capitalism, racism,...
Woleté The Story of an Enslaved Ethiopian Girl
Woleté The Story of an Enslaved Ethiopian Girl Aklilu Kidanu Woldegiorgis Excerpt Part 5 The Catastrophe In one unsuspecting bright morning, the lives of a happy girl and her childhood friends ch...
Table of Contents <em>Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice</em>
Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice Patrice Lawrence Excerpt Chapter 1 Al I’m hungry. Really hungry. I want to fill the biggest bowl with cornflakes and ...
Table of Contents <em>Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice</em>
Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: My Audacious Quest for Justice Nkechi Taifa Excerpt Table of Contents Black Power, Black Lawyer: Memoir of Nkechi Taifa Prologue—“Judge Not” Red Ba...
Satin Doll: A Novel
Satin Doll: A Novel Karen E. Quinones Miller Excerpt Bang! The sound was loud, but not quite jarring enough to register instant recognition in her reefer-dulled brain. It could have been a fire...
A Long Way from Home
A Long Way from Home Connie Briscoe Excerpt Chapter One Clara sat up on the edge of her pallet and rubbed her eyes with her fists. She could tell it was awfully late by the wa...
No Man’s Compass
No Man’s Compass S. D. Hines Excerpt Michael Healy carried a sidearm, a .45 colt revolver. As the two men ran towards the boy, Michael gasped to his brother, "Get the boy…to safety…I...
Two “Til Midnight
Two “Til Midnight Bernard L. Dillard Excerpt Lead-In: Faculty members and staff at a university are having a diversity meeting and are discussing issues that concern becoming a more diverse camp...
Chapter 3 Jonathan Fraiser
Chapter 3 Jonathan Fraiser Alicia D. Williams Excerpt one Nobody could tell me that today wasn’t gon’ be my day. Even though I couldn’t determine the correct term of equality in ...
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life In Letters by Carla Kaplan
Zora Neale Hurston: A Life In Letters by Carla Kaplan Zora Neale Hurston Excerpt Chapter 1 “DE TALKIN’ GAME” The Twenties (and Before) First and foremost a storyteller, with ...
One Blood
One Blood Denene Millner Excerpt 1 The blood never much bothered Grace. Maw Maw Rubelle got her used to it early on, when she was little ol’, way before she let her only granddaughter, her a...
Night Hawks: Stories
Night Hawks: Stories Charles Johnson Excerpt The Weave Three thieves battered through a wall, crawled close to the floor to dodge motion detectors and stole six duffel bags filled with human hair ...
A Thug’s Redemption 2: Jamal’s Return
A Thug’s Redemption 2: Jamal’s Return Yani Excerpt They jumped on the elevator and rode down to the garage. Neither Maurice nor Angela knew what to say to Keisha so they followed in silence. They ma...
Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him)
Hot Johnny (and the Women Who Loved Him) Sandra Jackson-Opoku Excerpt He knew just how to feed them You see all our hungry faces in the photo album of his life. And you wonder. Who is ...
I Can’t Wait on God
I Can’t Wait on God Albert French Excerpt Chapter One Pittsburgh, 1950 Summer night air was always sticky kind of air, had that stinkin mill smoke stuck all in it. Them old freight trains ...
Murder At Cape Three Points
Murder At Cape Three Points Kwei Quartey Excerpt PROLOGUE Cape Three Points, the southernmost tip of Ghana, is beautiful and wild. Verdant forest covers the three finger-like peninsulas th...
Provenance: A Novel
Provenance: A Novel Donna Drew Sawyer Excerpt Prologue Park Place, Virginia - Fall 1909 “Hank, run!” was the last thing he heard Junior say. Deputies struggled to hold and handcuff ...
Ida Mae
Ida Mae Delores Thornton Excerpt Ida Mae stumbled into the kitchen, careful not to wake Papa or Milan, as she climbed the back stairs. If I’m lucky, I can pour a bath and bandage my wounds and ...
Passing By Samaria
Passing By Samaria Sharon Ewell Foster Excerpt With just a second’s pause, Alena stepped into the strange green world. Entranced, she walked further in amongst the trees. She did not look bac...