Juneteenth: Readings and Resources

"Exploring the interface between the cultural poliics of the Black Power and Black Arts movements and the production of postwar African American popular culture, Amy Ongiri shows how the reliance of Black politics on an oppositional image of African Americans was the formative moment in the construction of 'authentic blackness' as a cultural identity."

"This book brings together literary texts, historical and contemporary anthropological studies, theology, and critical theory to show how Black authors in the Americas employ spiritual phenomena as theoretical frameworks for sociopolitical power."

"Each chapter contextualizes the role that Black women in the United States play in the global project of Black consumption, questioning which dolls, which princesses, which rags-to-riches narratives, and which characteristics represent the repertoire of Black girlhood. Through themes of self-making and objectification in dolls, princesses, and hip-hop, Buy Black maps the imagined space of "America" and the cultural attitudes that produced a twenty-first-century Black American sensibility based in representation and consumerism."

"... insightful combination of reportage and history of the Civil Rights movement allows us to see the era with fresh eyes. By tracing the continued legacy of the black freedom struggle from the 1960s to the present, this gem of a book wonderfully illuminates how the movement is living and thriving in our own time."

"The post–Civil Rights era was marked by an explosion of black political thought and aesthetics. Reflecting a shifting horizon of expectations around race relations, the unconventional sounds of free jazz coupled with experimental literary creation nuanced the push toward racial equality and enriched the possibilities for aesthetic innovation within the Black Arts Movement. In Imagine the Sound, Carter Mathes demonstrates how African American writers used sound to further artistic resistance within a rapidly transforming political and racial landscape."

"This book traces the long arc of Black women's relationship with technology from the antebellum south to the social media era demonstrating how digital culture transforms and is transformed by Black feminist thought."

"The first comparative history of African American and Black British artists, artworks, and art movements, Stick to the Skin traces the lives and works of over fifty twentieth- and twenty-first-century painters, photographers, sculptors, mixed-media assemblage, installation, video, and performance artists."

"A dynamic chronological study, the book explores how Black women public intellectuals, creative writers, and classic blues singers sometimes utilize singular but other times overlapping forms of literacies to engage in debates on race."

"While White parents raising Black children has become increasingly salient in the last 20-30 years, the experience of those who grow up in these cross-racial families is much more complicated. Indeed, much of the adoption studies literature has privileged White parent voices, further silencing cross-racially raised Black-identified children. “Is That Your Mom?” challenges the dominant narrative that love trumps race (and racism) in family dynamics, and reasserts the need for critical voices of those most impacted by being cross-racially raised: the very people who face extreme racism that is both similar to, and uniquely different from, that faced by people of color more broadly."

"This book is a compact, exceptionally diverse introduction to the history of Black women, from the first African woman who arrived in America to the women of today."

"... explores how fantasy-especially superhero comics, which are usually derided as naïve and childish-is a catalyst for engaging the black radical imagination. Such engagements prompt 'fantasy-acts' against antiblackness, a transgressive way of 'reading' beyond the comic-book page to envision and to experience alternate, and potentially more just, realities."

"In Racial Resentment in the Political Mind, Darren Davis and David Wilson explore the idea that racial resentment, rather than simply racial prejudice, is the basis for growing resistance among whites to efforts to improve the circumstances faced by minorities in the United States. The authors start with the idea that there is growing sentiment among whites that they are "losing-out" and "being cut in line" by Blacks and other minorities, as reflected in an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, multiculturalism, trigger warnings, and political correctness, an increase in African Americans occupying powerful and prestigious positions, and the election of Barack Obama as the first Black president."

"Synthesizing some 250 scholarly works about Morrison's writing, this book examines eight novels as well as the short story "Recitatif" (widely taught in classrooms worldwide). They are analyzed for techniques used to deepen meaning and emotional weight, and reveal Morrison's mastery over prose."

"Rather than simply engaging in a triumphalist narrative of overcoming where both disability and disablement are shunned alike, Disabilities of the Color Line argues that Black authors and activists have consistently avowed disability as a part of Black social life in varied and complex ways. Sometimes their affirmation of disability serves to capture how their bodies, minds, and health have been and are made vulnerable to harm and impairment by the state and society. Sometimes their assertion of disability symbolizes a sense of commonality and community that comes not only from a recognition of the shared subjection of blackness and disability but also from a willingness to imagine and create a world distinct from the dominant social order."

"The Meaning of Soul discusses Black resilience and innovation through soul music and soul logic. Emily Lordi analyzes soul music and musicians from the 1960s, the 1970s, and after, bridging the different valences of soul as a way of moving through the world. The book encompasses soul's racial-political meanings while being sensitive to the details of the music and small details that shaped artists' lives and their relationship to soul."

"Novel in its approach and unique in its scope, Black Mental Health: Patients, Providers, and Systems examines the role of African Americans within American psychiatric health care from distinct but interconnected perspectives. The experiences of both black patients and the black mental health professionals who serve them are analyzed against the backdrop of the cultural, societal, and professional forces that have shaped their place in this specialized health care arena."

"The complicated realities revolving around the intersections of Blackness are rarely explored. In this book written with young adults in mind, Johnson covers one such intersectionality as a person who identifies as Black and queer. Recalling his own experiences with gender identity through childhood he addresses the significance of consent, masculinity, Black joy and allyship."

"Beginning in 1970 with her arrest in connection with a courtroom shootout, then moving through her trial and acquittal, the book traces Davis's life and work during the subsequent decades and her influential career as a public intellectual. Profusely illustrated with materials found in the archive, including press coverage, photographs, court sketches, videos, music, writings, correspondence, and Davis's political writings, the book also features interviews with Angela Davis and Lisbet Tellefsen, the archivist who collected those materials."

"This straight-forward and reader-friendly text provides strategies for P-12 educators who are interested in ensuring the cultural and academic excellence of African American students. It presents a careful balance of published scholarship, a framework for culturally relevant teaching, and research-based cases of teachers who excel at teaching Black children.

"These engaging true stories show that for most of American history, the law was an enemy to the Black Woman. Using perseverance, tenacity, intelligence and faith, she turned the law into a weapon to combat discrimination, a prestigious occupation, and a platform from which she could lift others as she rose."

"Paul Butler considers NWA's 1988 song, "Fuck tha Police," as an invitation to think about putting the police on trial for crimes against African Americans. It examines the resonance of "Fuck tha Police" over time, up to and including the George Floyd inspired protests."

"Perry draws upon the insights and tools of critical race theory, social policy, law, sociology, and cultural studies to demonstrate how postintentional racism works, but also identifies a place of hope."

"A chronicle of the decades-long migration of Black citizens who, during the twentieth century, fled the south for northern and western cities in search of a better life."

"This book tells the story of the rise and fall of the first civil rights era, viewed through the lens of action in the US Congress. The first civil rights era, as we define it, extends from 1861 through 1918, or from the Civil War through the First World War. During that time the formal status of African Americans shifted from slave to citizen and then to something in between. This distinctive path was largely determined by laws and, later, failed laws in Congress. Many books tell the story of African Americans during these years. Our book is explicitly about how the arc of civil rights was determined by Congress over these five decades and more."

"This book analyzes the emancipation activism of free black people who settled in Civil War-era Indiana and Illinois. Antebellum activists defined emancipation on their own terms, through the construction of churches, schools, and political conferences"

"An essential collection of essays, interviews, poems, resolutions, and more from educators, students, and activists who have been building the Black Lives Matter at School movement across the country, including a foreword by Black Lives Matter co-founder Opal Tometi."

"Merging theory and praxis, Murillo engages with Gayl Jones's Corregidora, Octavia Butler's Kindred, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Kiese Laymon's Long Division, Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of No Return, and Paul Beatty's The Sellout to show how Afro-pessimism offers new ways to think about anti-Black racism and practice Black creativity."

"This book draws from the successes of award-winning schools, teachers, students, and parents to help leaders understand how they can positively change the educational experience of Black students. When Black Students Excel offers real-life examples of outstanding elementary, middle, and high schools where teachers and school leaders have rejected policies and practices built upon deficit perceptions about the capacity of Black students. Chapters highlight leadership implications and offer specific suggestions for educators who are seeking to transform their schools in ways that advance the success of Black students."

"Activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that the new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation."

"Adeyemi's framework of "feeling right" instead offers a closer, kinesthetic look at how black queer women adroitly manage feeling itself as a complex right they should be afforded in cities that violently structure their movements and energies. What emerges in Feels Right is a sensorial portrait of the critical, black queer geographies and collectivities that emerge in social dance settings and in the broader neoliberal city."

"... brings together a diverse group of scholars who discuss how k-12 Black history is understood in education. The book's chapters focus on the question, what is Black history, and explores that inquiry through various mediums including its foundation, curriculum, pedagogy, policy, and psychology. The book provides researchers, teacher educators, and historians an examination into how much k-12 Black history has come and yet how long it still needed to go."

"... offers the first full-length account of the oft-overlooked religious history of the phonograph industry. He explains why a critical mass of African American ministers teamed up with the major phonograph labels of the day, how and why black consumers eagerly purchased their religious records, and how this phonograph religion significantly contributed to the shaping of modern African American Christianity."

"The purpose of this book is to illuminate scholarship on Black women and girls throughout the educational pipeline. The contributors--all Black women educators, scholars, and advocates--name the challenges Black women and girls face while pursuing their education as well as offer implications and recommendations for practitioners, policymakers, teachers, and administrators to consider in ensuring the success of Black women and girls."

"The authors explore the meaning of skin color in contemporary American society, with an eye toward the ways in which skin color is intertwined with political views. They study the construction of racialized identities and its relationship to social and economic disparities in the United States. The book includes both human- and machine-assessed measures of skin color in a survey that considers political attitudes."

"Focusing on the years between 1910 and 1940, when Chicago's black population quintupled, Chatelain describes how Chicago's black social scientists, urban reformers, journalists and activists formulated a vulnerable image of urban black girlhood that needed protecting. She argues that the construction and meaning of black girlhood shifted in response to major economic, social, and cultural changes and crises, and that it reflected parents' and community leaders' anxieties about urbanization and its meaning for racial progress. Girls shouldered much of the burden of black aspiration, as adults often scrutinized their choices and behavior, and their well-being symbolized the community's moral health. Yet these adults were not alone in thinking about the Great Migration, as girls expressed their views as well."

"What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle."

"Once seen as only advocating violence, Hip Hop can be the church's agent of salvation and praise to transform society. After looking at Hip Hop's sociohistorical context, including its African roots, Wake Up! shows how Hip Hop now embodies the worldview of growing numbers of youth and young adults in all churches. The book also examines the inherent religious themes embedded in Hip Hop music."

"During the early Great Depression, African American women in the Midwest directly engaged with members of the American Communist Party to fight unemployment, hunger, homelessness, and racial discrimination in the workplace. This book highlights these struggles and brings them to the forefront of Black radicalism during the Great Depression, focusing on the cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis."

"The text demonstrates the way in which Malcolm X's philosophy lies at the intersection of the thought of W.E.B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon and is an integral part of the revolutionary politics formed to alleviate the plight of people of African descent globally. Exploring themes of ontology, the body, geographic space and revolution, Black Minded provides a much-needed appraisal of Malcolm X's political philosophy."

"Despite Black Americans being at high risk for negative mental health symptoms due to racism and other chronic stresses, disparities persist in the provision of mental health services to this population. This book addresses that gap in clinical practice by explicitly calling attention to the experience of race-based stress in the Black community. Johnson and Melton urge mental health practitioners to action in promoting societal understanding, affirmation, and appreciation of multiculturalism against the damaging effects of individual, institutional, and societal racism, prejudice, and all forms of oppression based on stereotyping and discrimination."

"While the COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating health and economic impacts in the United States, communities of color, especially Black communities, have been disproportionately affected. On June 23, 2020, the Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a virtual workshop to discuss the landscape of COVID-19, including how systemic racism contributes to the disproportionate effects related to infection rates and mortality of this virus and other health conditions. Presenters highlighted relevant research and creative responses from many perspectives, including how Black scientists, engineers, and doctors are contributing to solutions and are ready to do more. National Academies leaders and members also discussed the role of the National Academies in addressing the pandemic and underlying issues of systemic racism that have led to health disparities in the United States. This publication summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop."

"Sampling and Remixing Blackness is a timely and accessible book that examines the social ramifications of cultural borrowing and personal adaptation of Hip-hop culture by non-Black and non-African American Black artists in theater and performance. In a cultural moment where Hip-hop theater hits such as Hamilton offer glimpses of Black popular culture to non-Black people through musical soundtracks, GIFs, popular Hip-hop music, language, clothing, singing styles and embodied performance, people around the world are adopting a Blackness that is at once connected to African American culture--and assumed and shed by artists and consumers as they please."

"Paul Harvey illustrates how black Christian traditions provided theological, institutional, and personal strategies for cultural survival during bondage and into an era of partial freedom. At the same time, he covers the ongoing tug-of-war between themes of "respectability" versus practices derived from an African heritage; the adoption of Christianity by the majority; and the critique of the adoption of the "white man's religion" from the eighteenth century to the present."

"Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly-line approach to Black genius. And these critical inquiries are complemented by his own memories as a music fan, and the way his appetite for pop culture taught him about America. A history of the last half-century and an intimate conversation with one of music's most influential and original voices, Music Is History is a singular look at contemporary America."

"... a 21st century statement on the intersection of the future of African people with art, culture, technology, and politics. This collection enters the global debate on the emerging field of Afrofuturism studies with an international array of scholars and artists contributing to the discussion of Black futurity in the 21st century. The contributors analyze and respond to the invisibility or mischaracterization of Black people in the popular imagination, in science fiction, and in philosophies of history."

"This book explores the historical connections among jazz, African American Islam, and black internationalism from the 1940s to the 1970s. It shows that in the post-World War II era through the 1970s, the social justice values that Islam and jazz shared were key to the growth of African American Islamic communities in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. This book argues that it was jazz musicians who led the way in shaping encounters with Islam as they developed a black-Atlantic cool that shaped both black religion, jazz styles, and black masculinity and femininity during the Cold War and continuing up to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the 1960s."

"Riché Richardson examines how five iconic black women--Mary McLeod Bethune, Rosa Parks, Condoleezza Rice, Michelle Obama, and Beyoncé--defy racial stereotypes and construct new national narratives of black womanhood in the United States."

"This book introduces new audiences to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final initiative, the multiracial Poor People's Campaign (PPC) of 1968. Robert Hamilton depicts the experience of poor people who traveled to Washington in May 1968 to dramatize the issue of poverty by building a temporary city, Resurrection City. His narrative allows us to hear their voices and understand the strategies, objectives, and organization of the campaign. In addition, he highlights the campaign's educational aspect, showing that significant social movements are a means by which societies learn about themselves and framing the PPC as an initiative whose example can teach and inspire current and future generations."

"... engages ways in which African Americans, since the founding of the United States, have understood their struggle for freedom and liberty as a feature of changes within the Atlantic world. The essays in this volume capture how African Americans grappled with those questions, as the struggle for liberty in the United States continued through the end of the nineteenth century, when new regimes of power implemented systems of racial oppression that truncated what the historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries calls "Freedom Rights" for freedmen and women after the passing of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. This book charts the diverse ways in which African Americans utilized the Atlantic world in search of the ideals of liberty that they were denied at home. Black internationalism included emigration abroad, lecture tours in Europe denouncing slavery, and missionary activity in King Leopold's Congo, illustrating an international consciousness among black Americans."

"Infamous Bodies portrays five black women "celebrities" from the late-18th and 19th centuries whose histories and ongoing fame have generated new ways of imagining black feminist futures. Phillis Wheatley, Sally Hemings, Saartjie Baartman, Mary Seacole, and Sarah Bonetta have each become crucial figures for black feminists, who have frequently re-imagined these women's public and private lives, celebrating them as subjects who complicate a binary understanding of agency and subjection. Centering black women's lives at the fulcrum of developing freedom and rights discourses in the US and Europe, Samantha Pinto seeks to rewrite the history of modern nationhood through stories of black female subjectivity. The book's five chapters trace the historical significance of these figures, as well as the contemporary cultural artworks and performances that have rendered them celebrities for black feminist study.

"... considers both popular and literary texts that range from Beyoncé's Lemonade to Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones. These key works restage Black women in relation to nature. Dunning argues that depictions of protagonists who return to pastoral settings contest the violent and racist history that incentivized Black disavowal of the natural world. Dunning offers an original theoretical paradigm for thinking through race and nature by showing that diverse constructions of nature in these texts are deployed as a means of rescrambling the teleology of the Western progress narrative. In a series of fascinating close readings of contemporary Black texts, she reveals how a range of artists evoke nature to suggest that interbeing with nature signals a call for what Jared Sexton calls "the dream of Black Studies"-abolition:"

"'We were eight years in power' was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of new and selected essays, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America's 'first white president.' But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period--and the effects of the persistent shadow of our nation's old and unreconciled history."

"'Black People Are My Business': Toni Cade Bambara's Practices of Liberation studies the works of Bambara (1939-1995), an author, documentary filmmaker, social activist, and professor. Thabiti Lewis's analysis serves as a cultural biography, examining the liberation impulses in Bambara's writing, which is concerned with practices that advance the material value of the African American experience and exploring the introspection between artist production and social justice. This is the first monograph that focuses on Bambara's unique approach and important literary contribution to 1970s and 1980s African American literature. It explores her unique nationalist, feminist, Marxist, and spiritualist ethos, which cleared space for many innovations found in black women's fiction."

"The Gullah culture, though borne of isolation and slavery, thrived on the US East Coast sea islands from pre-Civil War times until today, and nowhere more prominently than on Hilton Head Island, SC. On this small barrier island descendants of the first generations of Gullah people continue to preserve Gullah language, customs, arts, and cuisine. The three authors of Gullah Days: Hilton Head Islanders Before the Bridge 1861-1956 are among those descendants, and in this book, they chronicle the amazing history of their secluded community from the Civil War through the 1950s, when real estate development connected Hilton Head Island to the mainland with a bridge."

"Black performance theory is a rich interdisciplinary area of study and critical method. This collection of new essays by some of its pioneering thinkers--many of whom are performers--demonstrates the breadth, depth, innovation, and critical value of black performance theory."

"By the mid-nineteenth century, an increasing number of enslaved people had fled northward along the Atlantic seaboard. While scholarship on the Underground Railroad has focused almost exclusively on overland escape routes from the antebellum South, this groundbreaking volume expands our understanding of how freedom was achieved by sea and what the journey looked like for many African Americans. With innovative scholarship and thorough research,Sailing to Freedom highlights little-known stories and describes the less-understood maritime side of the Underground Railroad, including the impact of African Americans' paid and unpaid waterfront labor."

"Examines how young adults discover their cultures through education, art, spirituality, and personal survival strategies. Provides an analysis of why minority youth's cultural backgrounds should be acknowledged by institutions of higher education in order for the students to excel."

"... a collection of personal narratives that articulate the political, social, religious, and cultural experiences of many who participated in Chicago's black struggle for self-determination, self-reliance, and equality during the civil rights and Black Power movements."

"This exhibition catalog to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts' The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse chronicles the pervasive visual and sonic parallels in the work of Black artists from the southern United States. It looks to contemporary southern hip-hop as a portal into the roots and aesthetic legacies that have shaped contemporary art from the 1920s to the present. It features multiple generations of both academically trained and 'outsider' artists working in a variety of genres and disciplines, including Thornton Dial, Allison Janae Hamilton, Arthur Jafa, Jason Moran, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Sun Ra, Kara Walker, and William Edmondson. Creating a capacious understanding of southern expression in visual art, material culture, and music, this richly illustrated volume documents the exhibition's artworks and includes critical essays, poems, artist biographies, and an extended bibliography."

"Cooley examines how class differences created fissures in the black community and produced quandaries for black Chicagoans interested in racial welfare. While black Chicagoans engaged in collective struggles, they also used individualistic means to secure the American Dream. Black Chicagoans demonstrated their talent and ambitions, but they entered through the narrow gate, and whites denied them equal opportunities in the educational institutions, workplaces, and neighborhoods that produced the middle class. African Americans resisted these restrictions at nearly every turn by moving up into better careers and moving out into higher-quality neighborhoods, but their continued marginalization helped create a deeply dysfunctional city."

"Obama’s election in 2008 was remarkable because he won 90 percent of the Black vote in the primaries despite Black leadership’s support of Clinton. This book focuses on how this happened, and the implications it holds for America’s politics and social landscape."

"A sweeping story of a mother and daughter that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life."

"Sahara, a queer, half-Nigerian college sophomore who feels like an all-around failure, finds hope, answers, and unexpected redemption when she sets out to find the truth about The Unfortunates--the unlucky subset of black undergrads who have been mysteriously disappearing."

"For lovers of fantasy, this novella inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Clipping, Daveed Diggs’ rap group, follows the descendants of pregnant African enslaved women who were thrown overboard during their forced journey to America. These water-breathing people live a near-utopian life under the sea, unaware of the true origin of their ancestry. Since the past is too traumatic for anyone to remember regularly, historian Yetu must be the keeper of memories for her people. In an attempt to escape the past and her responsibilities, she flees to the surface, discovering the world her people left behind. Yetu soon finds out that there’s more to their past, and that the world above the sea holds traumatic memories."

" Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined."

"Through vibrant Illustrations and lyrical story, this picture book follows a mother and child as they explore the meaning and delight of freedom."

"This picture book tells the story of the first Juneteenth through the eyes of a little girl who is freed on that day. With included notes from the author and illustrator, a timeline of notable dates, and a glossary, this is a great book to help kids understand the importance of Juneteenth."

"This children’s book adaptation of the empowering Bob Marley lyrics, Get Up, Stand Up, encourages young readers to use their voices to stand up for themselves and others. Through the perspective of a young girl’s day at school, this lyrical story showcases how injustice can appear in children’s everyday lives and each child’s unique and collective power to fight against it."

"Every movement has its unsung heroes: individuals who work in the background without praise or accolades, who toil and struggle without notice. One of those unsung heroes was at the center of some of the most important decisions and events of the Civil Rights Movement. That hero was a quiet man, a gay African American man. He was Bayard Rustin."

"Cassie Louise Lightfoot has a dream: to be free to go wherever she wants for the rest of her life. One night, up on “tar beach,” the rooftop of her family’s Harlem apartment building, her dreams come true. The stars lift her up, and she flies over the city, claiming the buildings and the city as her own."

"Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history. The day her
ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth."

"Ruth and the Green Book is the story of one Black family’s trip from Chicago to Alabama by car in the late 1940s. Along the way they encounter prejudice, but they also discover The Green Book, a real guide to accommodations which was published for decades to aid African American travelers as they faced prejudice on the roads across the country."

"Told through a series of diary entries, this Coretta Scott King Honor winner follows Patsy, a recently freed 12-year-old girl living in Mars Bluff, S.C., during the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Patsy observes all of the changes taking place around her and celebrates no longer having to hide her ability to read and write, allowing her to forge a better life for herself and for fellow former enslaved people."

"Brought together during summer music camp where they are the only two Black girls, Andi and Zora slowly begin to connect and soon come to realize what has been missing from their lives—each other."

"The premiere book in the First Conversations board book series, Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race, offers children and adults in their lives supportive examples for holding honest conversations about race and racism told in a read-aloud format. Backed by research in early childhood development, this vibrantly illustrated picture book equips readers with clear language, and historical context to learn about skin color, race, and racism and gives examples of ways young children can use their unique voices to stand for fairness."

"Our fight for racial justice is one that has been carried on by people for generations. Through beautiful illustrations, this rhythmically told picture book celebrates the diverse pursuits and accomplishments of Black leaders throughout history and showcases how each generation's work enables the following to reach new heights."

"Propelled by his best friend's impending move out of state and inspired by Ferris Bueller's Day Off, sixteen-year-old Harrison plans a farewell through Baltimore that includes a road trip, their first Pride, and a rooftop dance party."

"As a young Black girl, June loves celebrating her people’s emancipation on Juneteenth. But her cousin Lillie is used to celebrating freedom on the Fourth of July. Will June be able to teach Lillie the importance of Juneteenth during their family’s celebratory picnic?"