Black Page Turners

Making Rent in Bed-Stuy: A Memoir of Trying to Make It in New York City by:Brandon Harris
A young African American millennial filmmaker’s funny, sometimes painful, true-life coming-of-age story of trying to make it in New York City—a chronicle of poverty and wealth, creativity and commerce, struggle and insecurity, and the economic and cultural forces intertwined with “the serious, life-threatening process” of gentrification.

Making Rent in Bed-Stuy explores the history and sociocultural importance of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn’s largest historically black community, through the lens of a coming-of-age young American negro artist living at the dawn of an era in which urban class warfare is politely referred to as gentrification. Bookended by accounts of two different breakups, from a roommate and a lover, both who come from the white American elite, the book oscillates between chapters of urban bildungsroman and a historical examination of some of Bed-Stuy’s most salient aesthetic and political legacies.

Filled with personal stories and a vibrant cast of iconoclastic characters— friends and acquaintances such as Spike Lee; Lena Dunham; and Paul MacCleod, who made a living charging $5 for a tour of his extensive Elvis collection—Making Rent in Bed-Stuy poignantly captures what happens when youthful idealism clashes head-on with adult reality.

Melding in-depth reportage and personal narrative that investigates the disappointments and ironies of the Obama era, the book describes Brandon Harris’s radicalization, and the things he lost, and gained, along the way.
Release: 6/7/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Paperback)

Forbidden Fruit by:Stanley Gazemba
Desperate to make ends meet, Ombima commits a “harmless” crime. When he tries to conceal his misdeed, the simple farm laborer becomes a reluctant participant in a sinister affair. If discovered, the consequences could be disastrous for Ombima’s family, friends, and a spate of unwitting, gossipy villagers.

A delicious tale of greed, lust, and betrayal, Stanley Gazemba’s Forbidden Fruit is more than a dramatic tale of rural life in western Kenya. The moral slips and desperate cover-ups—sometimes sad, sometimes farcical—are the stories of time and place beyond the village of Maragoli. Gazemba’s novel, previously published in Kenya as The Stone Hills of Maragoli (Kwani? 2010), won the prestigious Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature.
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Paperback)

Black Detroit: A People’s History of Self-Determination by:Herb Boyd
The author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit — a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy.

Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1939, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one of many he witnessed that would mold his political activism and exposed a city restless for change. In Black Detroit, he reflects on his life and this landmark place, in search of understand why Detroit is a special place for black people.

Boyd reveals how Black Detroiters were prominent in the city’s historic, groundbreaking union movement and — when given an opportunity — were among the tireless workers who made the automobile industry the center of American industry. Well paying jobs on assembly lines allowed working class Black Detroiters to ascend to the middle class and achieve financial stability, an accomplishment not often attainable in other industries.

Boyd makes clear that while many of these middle-class jobs have disappeared, decimating the population and hitting blacks hardest, Detroit survives thanks to the emergence of companies such as Shinola — which represent the strength of the Motor City and and its continued importance to the country. He also brings into focus the major figures who have defined and shaped Detroit, including William Lambert, the great abolitionist, Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, Coleman Young, the citys first black mayor, diva songstress Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, and Ralphe Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

With a stunning eye for detail and passion for Detroit, Boyd celebrates the music, manufacturing, politics, and culture that make it an American original.
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Audible), (Audio CD)

Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination by:Brent Hayes Edwards
Hearing across media is the source of innovation in a uniquely African American sphere of art-making and performance, Brent Hayes Edwards writes. He explores this fertile interface through case studies in jazz literature—both writings informed by music and the surprisingly large body of writing by jazz musicians themselves.
Release: 6/5/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Hardcover)

Float Like a Butterfly by:Ntozake Shange
Muhammad Ali is considered by many to have been the finest athlete of the twentieth century. Here is a compelling testimony to his courage, resilience in the face of controversy, and boxing prowess by Obie Award-winning author Ntozake Shange. In her own words, Shange shows us Ali and his life, from his childhood in the segregated South, to his meteoric rise in boxing to become the Heavyweight Champion of the World. Edel Rodriguez’s stunning artwork combines pastels, monoprint woodblock ink linework and spray paint on colored papers to capture Ali’s power, spontaneity, and energy. A timeline and list of additional resources in the backmatter help make this a standout picturebook biography of the man known around the world as “The Greatest.”

The reissue of this compelling portrait will have readers cheering once again for the late American icon.
Release:6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Hardcover)

A Band of Babies by:Carole Gerber
New York Times bestselling illustrator Jane Dyer teams up with award-winning author Carole Gerber to lead a band of marching babies all through town.

It was just an ordinary day at play group until Benny arrived. With flute in hand and drums in tow, Benny’s love of music inspires the babies to get up and put on a show. Toot! Toot! Whee! Benny and his band of babies are a sight to see!

With rhythmic text from veteran author Carole Gerber and lively illustrations from bestselling artist Jane Dyer, this musical journey will have readers of all ages snapping their fingers and tapping their toes!
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Hardcover)

Out of Oakland by:Sean L. Malloy
In Out of Oakland, Sean L. Malloy explores the evolving internationalism of the Black Panther Party (BPP); the continuing exile of former members, including Assata Shakur, in Cuba is testament to the lasting nature of the international bonds that were forged during the party’s heyday. Founded in Oakland, California, in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, the BPP began with no more than a dozen members. Focused on local issues, most notably police brutality, the Panthers patrolled their West Oakland neighborhood armed with shotguns and law books. Within a few years, the BPP had expanded its operations into a global confrontation with what Minister of Information Eldridge Cleaver dubbed “the international pig power structure.”

Malloy traces the shifting intersections between the black freedom struggle in the United States, Third World anticolonialism, and the Cold War. By the early 1970s, the Panthers had chapters across the United States as well as an international section headquartered in Algeria and support groups and emulators as far afield as England, India, New Zealand, Israel, and Sweden. The international section served as an official embassy for the BPP and a beacon for American revolutionaries abroad, attracting figures ranging from Black Power skyjackers to fugitive LSD guru Timothy Leary. Engaging directly with the expanding Cold War, BPP representatives cultivated alliances with the governments of Cuba, North Korea, China, North Vietnam, and the People’s Republic of the Congo as well as European and Japanese militant groups and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In an epilogue, Malloy directly links the legacy of the BPP to contemporary questions raised by the Black Lives Matter movement.
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Paperback)

I Can’t Make This Up by:Kevin Hart
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

The question you’re probably asking yourself right now is: What does Kevin Hart have that a book also has?

According to the three people who have seen Kevin Hart and a book in the same room, the answer is clear:

A book is compact. Kevin Hart is compact.

A book has a spine that holds it together. Kevin Hart has a spine that holds him together.

A book has a beginning. Kevin Hart’s life uniquely qualifies him to write this book by also having a beginning.

It begins in North Philadelphia. He was born an accident, unwanted by his parents. His father was a drug addict who was in and out of jail. His brother was a crack dealer and petty thief. And his mother was overwhelmingly strict, beating him with belts, frying pans, and his own toys.

The odds, in short, were stacked against our young hero, just like the odds that are stacked against the release of a new book in this era of social media (where Hart has a following of over 100 million, by the way).

But Kevin Hart, like Ernest Hemingway, JK Rowling, and Chocolate Droppa before him, was able to defy the odds and turn it around. In his literary debut, he takes the reader on a journey through what his life was, what it is today, and how he’s overcome each challenge to become the man he is today.

And that man happens to be the biggest comedian in the world, with tours that sell out football stadiums and films that have collectively grossed over $3.5 billion.

He achieved this not just through hard work, determination, and talent: It was through his unique way of looking at the world. Because just like a book has chapters, Hart sees life as a collection of chapters that each person gets to write for himself or herself.

“Not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter,” he says. “So why not choose the interpretation that serves your life the best?”
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Audible)

Loving: Interracial Intimacy in America and the Threat to White Supremacy by:Sheryll Cashin
How interracial love and marriage changed history and may soon alter the landscape of American politics.

Loving beyond boundaries is a radical act that is changing America. When Mildred and Richard Loving wed in 1958, they were ripped from their shared bed and taken to court. Their crime: miscegenation, punished by exile from their home state of Virginia. The resulting landmark decision of Loving v. Virginia ended bans on interracial marriage and remains a signature case – the first to use the words white supremacy to describe such racism.

Drawing from the earliest chapters in US history, legal scholar Sheryll Cashin reveals the enduring legacy of America’s original sin, tracing how we transformed from a country without an entrenched construction of race to a nation where one drop of nonwhite blood merited exclusion from full citizenship. In vivid detail she illustrates how the idea of whiteness was created by the planter class of yesterday and is reinforced by today’s power-hungry dog whistlers to divide struggling whites and people of color, ensuring plutocracy and undermining the common good.

Cashin argues that over the course of the last four centuries, there have always been “ardent integrators” who are now contributing to the emergence of a class of “culturally dexterous” Americans. In the 50 years since the Lovings won their case, approval for interracial marriage rose from 4 percent to 87 percent. Cashin speculates that rising rates of interracial intimacy – including cross-racial adoption, romance, and friendship – combined with immigration and demographic and generational change will create an ascendant coalition of culturally dexterous whites and people of color.

Loving is both a history of white supremacy and a hopeful treatise on the future of race relations in America, challenging the notion that trickle-down progressive politics is our only hope for a more inclusive society. Accessible and sharp, Cashin reanimates the possibility of a future where interracial understanding serves as a catalyst of a social revolution ending not in artificial color blindness but in a culture where acceptance and difference are celebrated.
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Audible)

Chasing Grace by:Sanya Richards-Ross
“For as long as I can remember, life has been measured in seconds,” says Sanya Richards-Ross “The fewer, the better.”

Sanya starting running track as a little girl in Jamaica and began winning races when she was only seven years old.

In Chasing Grace, Sanya shares triumphant as well as heartbreaking stories as she reveals her journey to becoming a world-class runner. From her early years in Jamaica, through her multiple trips to the Olympics, to becoming one of the most decorated female track and field athletes of all time, readers will find themselves inspired not only by her victories. Sanya offers wisdom and insights she’s gained through her challenges and losses also, especially the injury and resulting loss at the 2016 Olympic Trials. Sanya demonstrates how even this devastating loss brought her closer to the ultimate goal of becoming all God created her to be.

Sanya herself says it best: “Sometimes you think you are chasing a gold medal, but that’s not what you are chasing. You’re racing to become the best version of yourself.”
Release: 6/7/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Hardcover)

Kennedy and King: The President, the Pastor, and the Battle over Civil Rights by:Steven Levingston
Kennedy and King traces the emergence of two of the twentieth century’s greatest leaders, their powerful impact on each other and on the shape of the civil rights battle between 1960 and 1963. These two men from starkly different worlds profoundly influenced each other’s personal development. Kennedy’s hesitation on civil rights spurred King to greater acts of courage, and King inspired Kennedy to finally make a moral commitment to equality. As America still grapples with the legacy of slavery and the persistence of discrimination, Kennedy and King is a vital, vivid contribution to the literature of the Civil Rights Movement.
Release: 6/6/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Audible), (Audio CD)