"Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a man-child was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte." So begins Roots, one of the most extraordinary and influential books of our time. Through the story of one family—his family—Alex Haley unforgettably brings to life the monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him: slaves and freedmen, farmers...

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an 1845 memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and former slave Frederick Douglass.

Up from Slavery is the 1901 autobiography of Booker T. Washington detailing his personal experiences in working to rise from the position of a slave child during the Civil War, to the difficulties and obstacles he overcame to get an education at the new Hampton University, to his work establishing vocational schools—most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama—to help black people and other disadvantaged minorities learn useful, marketable skills...

Now adapted for young adults, the #1 New York times best-selling memoir offers an intimate look at Barack Obama's early days, tracing the future 44th president's odyssey through family, race, and identity.

From Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow Wil Haygood comes a mesmerizing inquiry into the life of Eugene Allen, the butler who ignited a nation's imagination and inspired a major motion picture: Lee Daniels' The Butler.

First published in 1886, "Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People" is the fascinating biography of Harriet Tubman by American author and historian Sarah H. Bradford. The second of Bradford's works on the life of the courageous former slave and abolitionist, Tubman herself worked closely with the author to ensure that the details of her amazing life were captured accurately. Bradford's biography begins with Tubman's birth into slavery in Maryland in...

"The Sword and the Shield is a dual biography of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King that transforms our understanding of the twentieth century's most iconic African American leaders. Peniel E. Joseph reveals a nuanced portrait of two men who, despite markedly different backgrounds, inspired and pushed each other throughout their adult lives. This is a strikingly revisionist biography, not only of Malcolm and Martin, but also of the movement and era...

Presents a portrait of middle-class African-Americans as they reflect on the losses and gains of moving up and out of their community.

A biography of the African American singer and actor who was an advocate of racial equality.

This poignant and powerful narrative tells the dramatic story of Kunta Kinte, snatched from freedom in Africa and brought by ship to America and slavery, and his descendants. Drawing on the oral traditions handed down in his family for generations, the author traces his origins back to the seventeen-year-old Kunta Kinte, who was abducted from his home in Gambia and transported as a slave to colonial America. In this account Haley provides an imaginative...