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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...
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...
Archangels of Funk
Archangels of Funk Andrea Hairston Excerpt CINNAMON HAIR ON FIRE “Who’s afraid of the future?” Cinnamon Jones sucked a deep breath and raced downhill in the dark on fast hy...
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...
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...
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...
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. ...
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...
Tuff: A Novel
Tuff: A Novel Paul Beatty Excerpt Now on this, the last cool night of summer, Brooklyn was short three more niggers for Winston to hate. Although he addressed all black men as “God,” Ch...
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...
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass Excerpt PREFACE In the month of August 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to beco...
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 ...
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 ...
Chapters <a href="#1">1</a> & <a href="#12">12</a>: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous
Chapters 1 & 12: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous Kevin P. Chavous Excerpt Chapter 1 𝒥ackson Lowery was in trouble. The man was coming at him again. Jackson was much taller, but the shorter man w...
Chapters <a href="#1">1</a> & <a href="#12">12</a>: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous
Chapters 1 & 12: The Fund by Kevin P. Chavous Kevin P. Chavous Excerpt Chapter 1 𝒥ackson Lowery was in trouble. The man was coming at him again. Jackson was much taller, but the shorter man w...
After
After Marita Golden Excerpt The bullets discharge from the muzzle of officer Carson Blake’s sixteen round Beretta with the tinny explosive popping sound of a toy gun. He will not remember exact...
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 ...
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...
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...
The Savion Sequence
The Savion Sequence D. Amari Jackson Excerpt PROLOGUE “How could this be?” marveled the wide-eyed Nubian, removing the protective mask covering his nose and mouth so his partner could ...
The Savion Sequence
The Savion Sequence D. Amari Jackson Excerpt PROLOGUE “How could this be?” marveled the wide-eyed Nubian, removing the protective mask covering his nose and mouth so his partner could ...
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...
A Lesson Before Dying
A Lesson Before Dying Ernest J. Gaines Excerpt I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still,...
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 ...
The Other Side of the Game
The Other Side of the Game Anita Doreen Diggs Excerpt CHAPTER 5 EVELYN Phil is taking me to B.B. King’s blues club in Manhattan so I’m trying to find the right pair ...
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...
Standing at the Scratch Line
Standing at the Scratch Line Guy Johnson Excerpt LeRoi picked up the rifle that was leaning against a root with its stock in the water. He checked the barrel carefully for obstructions, then mounted ...
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa Excerpt Chapter 1 An Ordinary Day “It’s Memorial Day. Y&rsq...
Embracing the Horror
Embracing the Horror Darline Dorce-Coupet Excerpt San Juan although very beautiful was a blur, as I contemplated the mysteries of the powerful desire I was experiencing. So completely absorbed by m...
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...
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...
The Root of All Evil
The Root of All Evil Gibran Tariq and Gregory S. Jones Excerpt Chapter One November 1942 It was one thing to be cold, but quite another to be freezing. Not long ago, Paul Madsen, had been warm ...
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...
Church Boy
Church Boy Connie Barrett Excerpt Chapter One: His mind raced as he maneuvered his way behind Charlie’s store ’ past the dumpsters, the broken crates, over the scrap heap. He had...
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...
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...
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...
Space Funk
Space Funk Milton J. Davis Excerpt The Right Stuff ByLynette S. Hoag Senator Lyndon took a seat behind the enormous mahogany desk. The desk wasn’t his. It belonged to the Head Administrat...
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...
My Soul to Keep
My Soul to Keep Tananarive Due Excerpt Even now, alone, Dawit knew he was being watched. One of the Searchers had found him, perhaps months before. He’d noticed a cigarette butt half bur...
Jelani’s Key Chapter II
Jelani’s Key Chapter II D. Amari Jackson Excerpt Chapter II The Bully of Benning Road
Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems
Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems Wanda Coleman Excerpt “Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead“ from Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems “American Sonnet“ from Wicked Ench...
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 ...
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...
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...
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 ...
A Thug’s Redemption
A Thug’s Redemption Yani Excerpt Shawn, Jamal and Maurice headed over to Erie Avenue to check out a basketball game in a nearby playground. Shawn was scoping out the competition to see who he would ...
Raisins in Milk – Chapter 1
Raisins in Milk – Chapter 1 Chauncey Ridley Excerpt Raisins in Milk – Chapter 1 Mandarin, Florida Springtime 1913 The breeze that came in from the sea was warm. It brought with it also the...
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 ...
The Fisher King: A Novel
The Fisher King: A Novel Paule Marshall Excerpt Chapter 1 "Had the brass-face to come round me playing the Sodom and Gomorrah music!" The old woman they said was his g...
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...
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...
Diamonds and Pearl
Diamonds and Pearl K’wan Excerpt CHAPTER 1 New Orleans, L.A.: Sept. 2005 “It looks bad out there, man.” Larry said staring out the rain slicked window of the second floor bedroom. I...
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...
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...
Juneteenth
Juneteenth Ralph Ellison Excerpt After Ellison’s death on April 16, 1994, speculation about the existence of the second novel reignited. In an article in the New York Times, William Grimes asse...
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned Walter Mosley Excerpt CHAPTER ONE CRIMSON SHADOW {1.} "What you doin' there, boy?" It was six a.m. Socrates Fortlow had come out to the al...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother
The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother James McBride Excerpt CHAPTER ONE Dead I’m dead. You want to talk about my family and here I been dead to them for fifty y...
Nobody Else Is Better Than You
Nobody Else Is Better Than You Katherine Johnson, Joylette Hylick, and Katherine Moore Excerpt Chapter 1: Nobody Else Is Better Than You The serious look in Daddy’s eyes told me his words w...
Chasing Ava
Chasing Ava Siera London Excerpt Ava had been distracted for days, Logan noticed. When he’d questioned her, she denied that there was a problem. But she seemed more fragile and solitary. Even w...
American Wings
American Wings Sherri L. Smith and Elizabeth Wein Excerpt PROLOGUE A Dream Takes Flight Omaha, Nebraska, 1919 It was going to cost three dollars to ride—about $50 in 2023, but the wo...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
Topaz
Topaz Beverly Jenkins Excerpt Chicago May 1884 Under the cover of the darkness, Katherine Love stood with her back pressed closely against the outside wall of the warehouse, hoping she couldn&r...
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 ...
West of Rehoboth
West of Rehoboth Alexs D. Pate Excerpt The soft summer held them all. They gently sat upon the shimmering flecks of sun hidden in the cut grass. They came together like this every Fourth of July. It ...
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...
Preface
Preface Kekla Magoon Excerpt Preface: When people talk about the Black Panthers, sometimes they speak in hushed tones, as if history itself could overhear. As if the Panthers are a secret no one s...
Excerpt: Afrocentric Style
Excerpt: Afrocentric Style Shirley Neal Excerpt From the “Hair” Chapter From the “Fashion” Chapter
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...