{"title":"New \u0026 Forthcoming Black Nonfiction Aug\/Sept","description":"\u003ch3 class=\"tw-text-lg md:tw-text-xl my-2 tw-font-bold my-2\"\u003eAvailable Online Only\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"my-6\"\u003eThe books in this collection  are available for online purchase only. They are  currently NOT in stock at Third Eye Books. Online Only.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"dear-mothership","title":"Dear Mothership","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of \u003ci\u003eMaybe the Saddest Thing \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSilencer\u003c\/i\u003e comes a playful yet profound poetry collection that orbits the intersections of public loss, private grief, (dis)connection, capitalism, and identity.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eDear Mothership\u003c\/i\u003e, Marcus Wicker channels the lyrical dexterity of Outkast and the speculative vision of poet Robert Hayden to chart a course through personal and political upheaval.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe collection's centerpiece is the \"Break Beat Crown\"--Wicker's original take on the heroic crown of sonnets--presented as a travelogue from an extraterrestrial who has touched down in modern-day Atlanta. Across linked poems, the outsider records field notes on pandemic discord, isolation, tenderness, late-stage capitalism, empathy, and art. The longer the speaker inhabits a dysfunctional society, the more alien he feels. In addition to these science fictional experiments, Wicker delivers affecting, personal poems grounded in lived experience: lingering grief over two miscarriages, the sudden death of a friend, a sustained search for joy on the other side of those heartbreaks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith its singular imagination, \u003ci\u003eDear Mothership \u003c\/i\u003ekindles a new understanding of what makes us most human.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ecco Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092414210,"sku":"9780063487697","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_fd143eaf-c847-43a2-956d-2c22da5ac9c8.jpg?v=1789451833"},{"product_id":"moving-toward-freedom","title":"Moving Toward Freedom","description":"\u003cb\u003eA magisterial, groundbreaking new study of the lives of enslaved Americans on the cusp of the Civil War that places them--and their hard-won political knowledge--rightly at the center of the fight for freedom\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe enduring image of American slavery has been of workers trapped on plantations, shuttling from squalid quarters to the fields and back again, or confined to the homes of abusive owners, constantly under surveillance and restriction. But if that were the whole picture, how would black Southerners have organized into such a formidable force the moment war erupted? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith \u003ci\u003eMoving Toward Freedom\u003c\/i\u003e, eminent historian Susan Eva O'Donovan radically widens the lens to reveal a new landscape of the slaveholding South: one in which enslaved workers were not pinned in place but mobile, deployed as laborers--and even as captains--on steamboats and ferries, or as teamsters transporting staple crops across the expanding country, or as ladies' maids waiting on their mistresses on European vacations. While performing brutal and involuntary work, O'Donovan argues, enslaved Americans managed to accumulate the crucial experience and knowledge that they would use to bring about their own liberation. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePiecing together an extraordinary archive of letters, travel passes, receipts, and other documentation of lives in which literacy was illegal, O'Donovan allows her subjects to speak for themselves as they move through markets, jails, waterways, gold mines, and foreign lands. In so doing, O'Donovan demonstrates that slavery's incredible profitability depended on a fundamentally unsustainable balance between commercial imperatives and slaveholders' drive for control--one that enslaved workers eventually succeeded in using to their advantage, bringing slavery to its knees.","brand":"Penguin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092283138,"sku":"9780593657041","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_a1eb9c32-5513-4a1d-a80c-eca33fda4e77.jpg?v=1789451833"},{"product_id":"the-black-shield","title":"The Black Shield","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eBoth an epic history and an intimate family story, a startling account of the lives of Black cops in one Midwestern city. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmid the fervent protests over police killings in 2020, the reporter Wilbert L. Cooper returned to his hometown of Cleveland to profile the president of a Black police organization called the Black Shield. The group had aligned itself with activists calling for reform, but its president was notorious for having shot a young unarmed Black man years earlier. As Cooper explored the question of whether Black cops can create the kind of radical changes in policing that Black people are calling for, he was also welcomed by the members of the group in a different, more complicated capacity: as Sergeant Will Cooper's son. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor Cooper, this assignment was personal. His parents are retired Black Cleveland cops; his sister was a Cleveland cop; on his mother's side, there has been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. In unearthing the dramatic histories of the Black Shield and his own family, Cooper tells the intertwined stories of the two: his relatives, whose lineage traces back to the Great Migration and who chose policing because it was one of the few stepping stones to economic security and status in a segregated city; and an organization that, over decades of cultural and political upheaval, has cycled endlessly between rebellion and acquiescence. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAn intimate, bold work of literary nonfiction, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Shield\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgent exploration of the complex duality of the Black cop. Cooper grapples with a knot of contradictions: Is the Black officer a sign of progressive change, or of a system that shifts its appearance without changing its outcomes? How to reconcile the fact that policing helped lift his family out of poverty while it has kept its knee on the necks of his people? Fearless and singularly powerful, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Shield\u003c\/i\u003e gives us an American story about race and power that has never been told before.","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092348674,"sku":"9780374613525","price":32.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_3906aaa6-1c7b-4d30-8988-65e0411675c7.jpg?v=1789451833"},{"product_id":"experienced","title":"Experienced","description":"\u003cb\u003eJimi Hendrix's road manager and confidant Eric Barrett breaks fifty-five years of silence\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Jimi Hendrix's road manager, Eric Barrett was there when the amps blew in Milan, when Hendrix set Woodstock ablaze, when paranoia crackled through the Toronto airport, when his music electrified a sea of 600,000 at the Isle of Wight, and in the quiet hours backstage when Hendrix revealed the insecurities behind his genius. Hendrix confided in few people. Barrett was one of them. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e No one was closer to Hendrix's supernatural talent--or his demons. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003ci\u003eExperienced\u003c\/i\u003e is Barrett's long-awaited, unflinching memoir: the definitive inside account of Hendrix as friend, bandleader, and phenomenon. It strips away the mythology to reveal the man in all his musical wizardry and human contradictions. It reveals Hendrix as volatile, generous, insecure, incandescently creative, and always in pursuit of the next sound. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e While his journey with Hendrix provides the book's spine, Barrett's decades on tour with David Bowie, Madonna, George Michael, and others add depth, parallels, and a sweeping sense of how Hendrix's short life set the template for rock 'n' roll excess--and survival--through the decades. The result is not just another rock memoir but a once-in-a-lifetime backstage history of music's most transformative years, told through the prism of Barrett's ride on Hendrix's feedback-fueled rise and tragic fall.","brand":"Diversion Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092315906,"sku":"9798895151198","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_c0ffdb95-1d01-40d5-99aa-430efabb56fa.jpg?v=1789451833"},{"product_id":"the-here-project","title":"The Here Project","description":"\u003cb\u003e200 stunning images in this companion book to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art exhibition celebrate 70 LGBTQ+ African artists\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWe are here. \u003c\/i\u003eThis powerful volume platforms artists whose work reflects their identities and experiences as African LGBTQ+ individuals. This is the largest survey of out queer African artists of its kind. Based on years of close collaboration and dialogue with these artists and their communities, \u003ci\u003eThe Here Project\u003c\/i\u003e demonstrates how they are a part of a larger, joyful story of African art history. At the same time, the LGBTQ+ experience in Africa is not monolithic. Political, social, and cultural freedoms and limits vary widely across both the continent and the wider diaspora, and the artists represented here help readers recognize that diversity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMore than 200 stunning images represent a range of media, including painting, photography, digital art, fashion, installation, and performance. The empowering and evocative imagery makes their lived and artistic experiences visible: Athi-Patra Ruga's tapestry \u003ci\u003eVersatile Queen \u003c\/i\u003epresents himself as Versatile Queen Ivy, one of his favorite avatars inspired by Rihanna and the legend of Lady Godiva, to confront normative ideas of Blackness and masculinity, while Zanele Muholi's self-portrait \u003ci\u003eMuholi Muholi, Parktown \u003c\/i\u003euses makeup and saturation to highlight the blackness of their skin tone in contrast to prevailing representations of Black women. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe text approaches artworks at an intimate level and places them in larger historical and artistic contexts. Grouping the works in thematic sections draws parallels across art and fosters ongoing conversations: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFamily\u003c\/b\u003e explores how birth and chosen families shape awareness of self and the world\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eIntimacy\u003c\/b\u003e considers self-realization through close connections such as loving interactions, deep companionship, and physical intimacy \u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cul\u003e\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eJoy\u003c\/b\u003e focuses on stories of happiness, connection, and pleasure that demonstrate resilience\u003c\/li\u003e\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eSpirit\u003c\/b\u003e represents African faith traditions and shows space for queer people\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFluidity\u003c\/b\u003e disrupts expectations and transcends social conventions, including gendered categories\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eBelong\u003c\/b\u003e asserts how queer people's experiences are rooted in the larger history and cultures that shaped them\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAction\u003c\/b\u003e expresses political activism with artists defending their communities and advancing their rights\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eFutures\u003c\/b\u003e presents utopian visions of a world to come in which LGBTQ+ individuals are affirmed and thriving\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Here Project \u003c\/i\u003eis rare in its scope and scale and pays beautiful tribute to contemporary artists making essential work. The featured artists practice across the African continent and its global diaspora, using their work to speak their truths. They are united by a simple, shared declaration: We are here and always have been and will be. 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The place, a Quaker farming community turned Underground Railroad stronghold, where a Maryland enslaver had journeyed in pursuit of four men who'd fled his plantation years before. In a few hours, he'd be dead...and twenty-seven men from the village of Christiana would be rounded up and put on trial. Not for his murder, but for \u003ci\u003etreason\u003c\/i\u003e--for waging war against the United States, at a time when it was a crime against the government to obstruct an enslaver looking to reclaim his \"property.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is story of what happened in Christiana that September morning--and in the ensuing \"trial of the century,\" which saw the president himself advise the prosecution on strategy and a sitting congressman serve as lead attorney for the defense. 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As the audience grows exponentially, the public is hungry to know more about some of the women who have ushered the sport into this bright spotlight, including elite and still-active veterans like Breanna Stewart, A'ja Wilson, Natasha Howard, Napheesa Collier, and others.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBefore Natasha Howard was a three-time WNBA champion, before she was named Defensive Player of the Year, she was a thoughtful girl growing up in very difficult circumstances. Her mother faced challenges of her own while shepherding her four children between cities, and sometimes in and out of homeless shelters. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYoung Natasha's life changed when her uncle Greg introduced her to basketball--with a bribe that included candy. Tash was instantly hooked. But what does a basketball player do when her school doesn't have a girls' team? She joins together with a friend to demand that they be allowed to try out for the boys' team. Which is what Tash did--and then became a starter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 2025 Natasha Howard was named MVP of the 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup. She currently plays with the Minnesota Lynx and shows no signs of slowing down at the age of thirty-four. \u003cem\u003eThe Vision Through My Lens\u003c\/em\u003e is her powerful story of building a life for herself through basketball. As a gay, Black woman, she used all her strength to forge forth, to triumph over an astonishing array of obstacles. Coauthored by Deyscha Smith, this memoir tells an unusually empowering tale of a strong girl becoming a stronger woman. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Akashic Books, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092807426,"sku":"9781636143507","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_444fc608-5b1a-4081-a420-681ba9cdce8d.jpg?v=1789451835"},{"product_id":"max-bond","title":"Max Bond","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first biography of a preeminent postwar architect who championed the cause of freedom through architecture and transformed Black history and modernism\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJ. Max Bond Jr. (1935-2009) was a civil rights activist, educator, and architect who shaped such iconic structures as the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and the 9\/11 Memorial \u0026amp; Museum in Manhattan. Driven by the concerns of the civil rights movement, he insisted on a practice centered on deep social engagement during years when his profession became preoccupied with celebrity and spectacle. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHarvard educated and son of an eminent African American family, Bond designed housing, cultural institutions, community centers, and campuses amid an era of sweeping changes in architecture, urbanism, and American culture. He expressed an architectural vision that was democratic and inclusive, international in orientation, and celebratory of cities and their diverse residents. Yet his work has often been overlooked. 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What had started as a plan to sing a recital in Washington's largest concert hall had turned, she feared, into a protest rally after she was barred from appearing on the venue's whites-only stage. The next day a crowd of seventy-five thousand flocked there to see her perform on Easter Sunday, 1939, before the monument of freedom itself. This was a major triumph for racial justice, but Anderson worried it would overshadow the rest of her inimitable career. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this rich new portrait, Anthony Tommasini brings his decades of musical expertise to bear upon Anderson's artistry, the journey of her life, and conversations about her legacy. After her breakout early performances in Europe, she gripped international audiences with her masterful renditions of Handel arias, German lieder, Scandinavian songs, and Negro spirituals: bold programming for her time. But recognition was harder to achieve at home. Though celebrated for her rich, lustrous voice and insightful artistry, Anderson had to contend with hotels and restaurants that turned her away in the very cities where she appeared in concert to acclaim. These tribulations brought forth memorable shows of goodwill--Eleanor Roosevelt fought the Daughters of the American Revolution in her honor; Albert Einstein housed her in Princeton--but were representative of the fierce racism Anderson faced. Still, she became one of the most respected and successful artists of her time and famously broke the color barrier for singers at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAs Arturo Toscanini famously said after attending one of Anderson's performances: \"What I heard today one is privileged to hear only once in a hundred years.\" Now, we get to experience this again, in the context of Anderson's dignified leadership, authenticity, and majestic presence.","brand":"Penguin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092938498,"sku":"9780593652671","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_cbbc1a3e-a4fc-4a0c-8561-61eac2d50b0f.jpg?v=1789451836"},{"product_id":"mahalia-jackson-moving-on-up-a-little-higher","title":"Mahalia Jackson, Moving on Up a Little Higher","description":"\u003cp\u003eIf Americans today still recognize the name Mahalia Jackson, they might recall that she was perhaps the greatest gospel singer who ever lived. But for many people, there is no awareness at all, not even for an entertainer whose \"Move On Up a Little Higher\" sold eight million copies, who headlined two Newport Jazz Festivals and performed before four United States presidents.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e While this rich musical legacy is admired by those in the know, virtually no one recognizes Jackson's astonishing role in American civil rights history. In this startling new depiction of the renowned gospel singer, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e best-selling author Timothy B. Tyson and Mary D. Williams, an acclaimed gospel singer herself, bring Jackson back to soaring life by positioning her as the major civil rights figure she, in fact, was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eMahalia Jackson, Moving On Up a Little Higher\u003c\/em\u003e then traces Jackson's career from abject poverty in New Orleans to global superstardom, revealing how even after meteoric success, Jackson maintained an unwavering devotion to Black freedom. In the 1930s in Chicago, even before the Civil Rights Movement took its modern shape, she used her rapturous voice to support independent Black political power. Her work only intensified in the 1940s and beyond when she campaigned first for Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later for Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson; headlined in Montgomery for the 1955-56 bus boycott; sang for the Birmingham campaign and on the Selma March; and performed at the iconic 1963 March on Washington, where she urged Martin Luther King Jr. to \"Tell 'em about the dream.\" In retrospect what becomes historically significant is that Mahalia Jackson was present at so many civil rights events, even singing a divine rendition of \"Precious Lord, Take My Hand,\" at Dr. King's funeral in 1968. Weakened and worn, she succumbed to heart failure four years later at the age of sixty.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Weaving together Mahalia Jackson's inspiring life journey with her soulful music into a transcendent text, this biography ultimately casts Mahalia Jackson as we've never seen her before, as a guiding light for the Civil Rights Movement, whose message still speaks to our struggles today.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Liveright Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496092971266,"sku":"9781324094616","price":28.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_cb46c584-8c00-4be9-8518-fe2005b60833.jpg?v=1789451836"},{"product_id":"99-problems-finding-the-1","title":"99 Problems Finding the 1","description":"\u003cb\u003eProfessor and punk musician G'Ra Asim claps back at chronic lovelessness in the post-covid era with heft and whimsy--and a template for a more intimate, interpersonal future\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 2004, Jay-Z released his instant classic \"99 Problems,\" which details the many problems in his life, expect romantic love. Fast forward over 20 years, G'Ra Asim is facing his own set of problems, except they all focus on modern romance. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eContemplating his singledom and mishaps in dating, Asim takes us through a thoughtful meditation on chronic lovelessness. Using a process he calls \"thinkful wishing\" as an antidote, Asim scopes out modern love, romance, and ambivalence to manifest a more loving and lovable future. Or at least someone he can list as his emergency contact. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e99 Problems Finding the 1\u003c\/i\u003e offers cultural critique, contemplation, and experience from a millennial in search of a partner. For example, Asim observes how ascendant Black folks rarely reach \"cruising altitude\"--a professional plateau stable enough to focus one's overtaxed attention on vetting potential partners. On tour with his band, he ponders the relationship between stage banter and the seedy underbelly of social awkwardness. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHis bold dissection of modernity serves a central claim: admittedly a problematic fave, love is worthy and capable of reclamation and redemption. Even as white supremacy gets in the way, Asim argues that we'll have to abandon the posture of terminal cool and hazard a little earnestness to bring love back.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093036802,"sku":"9780807017784","price":22.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_9b7d64cc-814b-44f6-9270-1adb47155017.jpg?v=1789451837"},{"product_id":"the-smallest-mistake-we-call-human","title":"The Smallest Mistake We Call Human","description":"\u003cp\u003eIsaac Pickell writes from the middle of things: the tensions between Blackness and Jewishness, between loss and inheritance, between being seen and being claimed. But these poems don't search for wholeness so much as they honor the seams--the complicated, unresolved places that keep our lives together. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGrief runs through. Much of it is personal: parents aging, partners wavering, friends dying, old selves discarded. But some of it is inherited--grief for everything America never let become possible, for the history that shaped us but won't hold us, for language that never quite fits. Haunted by economics like redlining, eviction, and scarcity, the book also confronts the grief of precarity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is not a book of coming to terms, it's a book that sits beside you while you try to live with what you know. 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The final section is dedicated to the beloved Ijapa, the Yoruba trickster tortoise whose cunning and greed always land him trouble, but whose stories impart valuable lessons about honesty, perseverance, and character. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book is made complete with stunning art by Data Oruwari, whose work brings the myths and characters to life in a manner that evokes traditional depictions of the orisa in West Africa and the diaspora. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA gift to both those familiar with Yoruba culture and religion and those who are encountering them for the first time, \u003ci\u003eYoruba Mythology\u003c\/i\u003e is an important and long-awaited contribution to the mythological canon.","brand":"Black Dog \u0026 Leventhal Publishers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093069570,"sku":"9780762485475","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_d57bed37-1aac-4899-81a9-c6b1b8d59a4f.jpg?v=1789451837"},{"product_id":"signals-across-vast-distances","title":"Signals Across Vast Distances","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this deeply personal book, Elizabeth Alexander gives us profound and galvanizing lessons from culture and life to move through challenging times. In close readings of visionary and beloved poets and writers--Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and June Jordan, among others--Dr. Alexander meditates on how words and values can sustain and inspire us, interweaving her voice with revelatory works of art by some of our most extraordinary visual artists, richly reproduced in the book's pages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHer stories of connection--as a daughter, wife, widow, and mother of two sons; reflecting at midlife on her younger days as an aspiring dancer; as a poet at President Obama's inauguration on the dais alongside her father, a civil rights pioneer; urging radical welcome in our families, communities, and country--engage and move us. Her reflections on the public project of acknowledging historical truths, a focus of her leadership at the Mellon Foundation, model courageous action.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThroughout the book, Alexander poses questions, encouraging readers to recognize the abundant resources we carry within or can access: language, history, art, community, family, our bodies, our stories, and love itself. In luminous and powerful prose, \u003cem\u003eSignals Across Vast Distances\u003c\/em\u003e calls us to imagine possibilities, take courage, and--in Alexander's closing words--\u003cem\u003elead with love.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W. W. 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Extraordinary.\" --Marlon James on \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThere Will Be No Miracles Here\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Most afternoons for the past three years, Casey Gerald took a walk. He would pass the compound that Elon Musk was building in his neighborhood; the burned-down Freedman's church; the little house where he and his lover Jack had seen a shooting star. He knew the world was crumbling, but he didn't fret. He had been promised: When it breaks, you'll be ready. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \"There is a great unfolding going on,\" Gerald writes, \"and all the clues for what's to come are planted in the people.\" In this quietly redemptive and lyrical book, Gerald shares his map for finding those clues, finding each other, and finding our way out of this dark and wearied time. On the other side of \u003ci\u003eNo\u003c\/i\u003e, Gerald insists, there is a \u003ci\u003eYes\u003c\/i\u003e--an embrace of what we really want, what we might finally claim once we refuse. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Calling forth a kaleidoscopic cast, from Odysseus to D'Angelo, Sun Tzu to Simone Biles, Black literati and desert mystics, Gerald implores us to take our power back and to remake the world together, on our terms. Written with Didion's cold eye and Baldwin's unflinching urgency, and with the dark humor of a man who's seen too much but still wants to see what's next, \u003ci\u003eThe Great Refusal \u003c\/i\u003eis a lifeline from the other side of ruin.","brand":"Little Brown and Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093135106,"sku":"9780316597418","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_35114d3c-5009-42cb-98b8-24e13155c3b0.jpg?v=1789451838"},{"product_id":"leap-grow-feathers","title":"Leap \u0026 Grow Feathers","description":"\u003cp\u003eBoth an instruction and a divination, \u003ci\u003eLeap \u0026amp; Grow Feathers \u003c\/i\u003eis an extraordinary transmission. In her third full-length collection, Yona Harvey listens -- to her predecessors, her instincts, and her environment -- gleaning sense from the static fraying our nerves, knowing the personal and the historical travel along the same frequency. Responding to the physical disruption and emotional disassociation of of the COVID-19 pandemic, the poet argues that the societal insistence on returning to \"business as usual\" reflects an institutional, academic, and political ineptitude to provide either physiological healing or social repair, a structural denial that erodes our humanity. As authoritarianism and ecological devastation progressively encroach on our lives, these poems prioritize hoodoo, spirit, intuition, and ancestral conversations in their readings, invoking the carekeeping and persistence of Harriet Tubman, Nikki Giovanni, and the countless forbears, unnamed and named, who traveled the Middle Passage and the Kalunga Crossing. This book channels the power and promise of that legacy as well as the full emotional range of sisterhood, the heartache and borrowed strength and shared laughter. Its humor, whitespace, sparseness, and longform narratives elicit reader participation and, in turn, enduring consideration. \"This float. This bob. This drown. This rock. \/\/ (This Rock. This Rock.) \/\/ This Great Goddamn.\" What do we find in this vastness, the simultaneity of the ever expanding time that lies ahead and full presence of history consolidating here now? An invitation to join Harvey in her vow: \"May I never pretend, \/ May eye be I.\" This collection\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eunveils our vision so we can see it all, not only yesterday's \"Nina Simone lyric \/ Spun out over a newborn Sunday\" in this very moment but also the music unfurling over each incipient morning of the future world we might build together. \u003ci\u003eLeap \u0026amp; Grow Feathers \u003c\/i\u003edescribes and directs: everything we need to survive, to shelter one another, and to protect the Earth lives already in our bodies, our lineages, and our lore. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Four Way Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093200642,"sku":"9781961897960","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_d60dac4e-7e3b-4ca3-b159-7124ac0fa8a5.jpg?v=1789451839"},{"product_id":"dook-chase","title":"Dook Chase","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFeaturing recipes from WYES PBS's \u003cem\u003eA Chef's Journey, \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003ethis collection brings the flavors of New Orleans to life through the recipes of Edgar \"Dook\" Chase IV. Alongside dishes showcased in the series, this book includes additional recipes that highlight his creativity and mastery of New Orleans cuisine.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDook Chase is an acclaimed New Orleans chef and restaurateur, best known as the executive chef and co-owner of the legendary Dooky Chase's Restaurant. A fourth-generation member of the iconic Chase family, he proudly carries forward the culinary and cultural legacy established by his grandparents, Leah and Edgar Chase Jr.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDook brings a thoughtful, contemporary approach to the kitchen while honoring the classic Creole cuisine for which the restaurant is known. 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At a young age, Felicia internalizes her hair as something to be managed, tamed, instead of a source of pride. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e As hair trends come and go, Felicia's beloved Jherri curl is replaced by every braided style in the book. She even tries her hand at weaves and relaxers. Felicia finds she loves doing hair so much she leaves her high-paying corporate job to enroll in beauty school and lands a hot new job at a salon where celebrities breeze through to freshen up their look. It isn't long until Felicia is styling her first celebrity client. Felicia's love of hair takes her around the world, to movie sets and several red carpets. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \u003ci\u003eRoot Therapy\u003c\/i\u003e, Felicia shares her journey of hair positivity, which opens the door to a beautiful spiritual journey of self-love. As a celebrity stylist and natural hair educator, Felicia has made it her life's mission to share the message of hair acceptance. Complete with exercises that show you the merits of owning one's complete self, Felicia encourages you to embrace your natural hair.","brand":"Simon \u0026 Schuster","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093233410,"sku":"9781982195014","price":28.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_629b9d01-8ab7-4221-ab4f-00df012e95a1.jpg?v=1789451839"},{"product_id":"a-moment-in-the-sun","title":"A Moment in the Sun","description":"\u003cp\u003eDispelling the persistent narrative that abject poverty followed the end of slavery in New York City, acclaimed historian Shane White finally sets the historical record straight. \u003cem\u003eA Moment in the Sun\u003c\/em\u003e, a revisionist and immersive retelling of antebellum Manhattan, depicts a long-forgotten, nineteenth-century era when ordinary Black men and women, now free, \"stood a brief moment in the sun\" (W. E. B. 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Its contributors--the Practicing Refusal Collective--are visual artists, poets, dancers, historians, writers, architects, painters, theorists, activists, anthropologists, filmmakers, educators, and musicians. Each has engaged with the idea of a lexicon of Black living and taken up the invitation to think from Black in relation to their own medium. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSome terms are enunciated in a poetic register--such as Redaction, Seeing, and Song. Some are aspirational--such as Solidarity, Garden, and Care. Some entries, such as BlackSound, Fantasy, Mathematics, and Dispossession, work in a more theoretical idiom. Words such as Gesture and Syncopation are composed of both text and drawings, and summon the body in motion. The word Time, which is defined twice, carries with it musicality, duration, and refusal. 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Now for her fans and new readers alike comes this giftable quote book, containing some of her most powerful writing from her previously published volumes and in an attractive, paper-over-board package. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWith nearly 40 verses and quotations, this collection explores themes of love, resistance, and social justice. Sample excerpts include: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn love: \"your hands\/humming hurricanes of beauty.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn resistance: \"I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn social justice: \"...if \u003ci\u003ewe the people\u003c\/i\u003e work, organize, resist, \u003cbr\u003ecome together for peace, racial, social\u003cbr\u003eand sexual justice\u003cbr\u003eit'll get better\u003cbr\u003eit'll get better.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA prominent member of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and a pioneer in education, Sanchez's career has spanned decades, spawned more than 20 books and countless other writings, with Sanchez herself receiving numerous accolades and awards. Carefully selected to inspire, and perfect for casual reading and contemplation, this is the ideal gift for fans and new readers alike.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48496093364482,"sku":"9780807025253","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0017\/0904\/7843\/files\/imageloader_33e3b841-ac6d-4176-bb86-97faefbc64c4.jpg?v=1789451840"},{"product_id":"triage","title":"Triage","description":"\u003cp\u003eA groundbreaking new direction for Claudia Rankine, the best-selling author of \u003ci\u003eCitizen\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eJust Us\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClaudia Rankine has widened contemporary literature with her consciousness-raising, genre-defying works. In her first book after her celebrated \u003ci\u003eAmerican\u003c\/i\u003e trilogy, presented with full-color visuals, Rankine shifts into sustained narrative, memory, criticism, and essay to offer her most personal and emotionally resonant writing yet. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eTriage\u003c\/i\u003e follows the turbulent friendship between two composite characters, the narrator and the theorist, self-identified sisters struggling to define their wounded histories and their shared but separate lives. During college, they invent a game of collapse: Every time they see each other, they have to stop and fall to the ground. 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