The ReadDown
Celebrate notable African Americans who have changed the culture and politics of the United States. Learn from inspirational figures, including Michelle Obama, Maya Angelou, and more, through their memoirs, essays, and biographies.
Learn more about inspiration Black leaders who changed history here.
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Civil Rights Queen
by Tomiko Brown-Nagin
The first major biography of Constance Baker Motley, one of our most influential judges — an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary — that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century.
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$19.00
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The Source of Self-Regard
by Toni Morrison
An essential collection from an essential writer, The Source of Self-Regard shines with the literary elegance, intellectual prowess, spiritual depth, and moral compass that have made Toni Morrison our most cherished and enduring voice.
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$19.00
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I Am Not Your Negro
by James Baldwin and Raoul Peck
James Baldwin was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic.In his final years, Baldwin had envisioned a book about his three assassinated friends, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. Filmmaker Raoul Peckjuxtaposes Baldwin’s deeply personal notes with his public statements, in a blazing examination of the tragic history of race in America.
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$17.00
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Black Futures
by Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham
Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work — images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more — to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics.
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$25.00
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The Upcycled Self
by Tariq Trotter
Today Tariq Trotter — better known as Black Thought — is the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning co-founder of The Roots and one of the most exhilaratingly skillful and profound rappers our culture has ever produced. In The Upcycled Self, Trotter doesn’t only narrate a riveting and moving portrait of the artist as a young man, he gives readers a courageous model of what it means to live an examined life. In vivid vignettes, he tells the dramatic stories of the four powerful relationships that shaped him — with community, friends, art, and family — each a complex weave of love, discovery, trauma, and loss.
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The Hill We Climb
by Amanda Gorman
On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this specialgiftedition. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this keepsake celebrates the promise of Americaand affirms the power of poetry.
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$15.99
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X
In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement.
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$30.00
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Ordinary Light
by Tracy K. Smith
InOrdinary Light,Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith tells her remarkable story, giving us a quietly potent memoir that explores her coming-of-age and the meaning of home against a complex backdrop of race, faith, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and daughter. Hereis the story of a young artist struggling to fashion her own understanding of belief, loss, history, and what it means to be black in America.
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$19.00
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The Truths We Hold
by Kamala Harris
From Vice President Kamala Harris, one of America’s most inspiring political leaders, comes a book about the core truths that unite us, and the long struggle to discern what those truths are and how best to act upon them, in her own life and across the life of our country.
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$18.00
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Thurgood Marshall
by Juan Williams
Thurgood Marshall argued many monumental cases (including Brown v. Board of Education) before the Supreme Court before joining as its first African American member. Juan Williams’ biography reveals the life of the great lawyer and Supreme Court justice.
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$20.00
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11
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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
by Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.I Know Why the Caged Bird Singscaptures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right.
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See AlsoTHE BEST CROCK POT CHILIPaperback
$18.00
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Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis.
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$26.00
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13
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A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency—a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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$45.00
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14
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The Beautiful Ones
by Prince
The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words—featuring never-before-seen photos, original scrapbooks and lyric sheets, and the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death.
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$32.00
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The Portable Frederick Douglass
by Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass, an outspoken abolitionist, was born into slavery and, after his escape, repeatedly risked his own freedom as a prominent anti-slavery lecturer, writer, and publisher.This collection contains the seminal writings and speeches of a legendary writer, orator, and civil rights leader.
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$25.00
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Becoming
by Michelle Obama
As First Lady, Michelle Obama helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls, and changing the ways that families pursue healthier lives.With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms.
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$18.99
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Sister Outsider
by Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde was a lesbian poet and feminist writer who published nine volumes of poetry and five works of prose. In this collection, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, hom*ophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope.
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$17.99
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18
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Just Mercy
by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.
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$17.00
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The Souls of Black Folk
by W. E. B. Du Bois
When The Souls of Black Folk was first published in 1903, it had a galvanizing effect on the conversation about race in America — and it remains both a touchstone in the literature of African America and a beacon in the fight for civil rights. Believing that one can know the “soul” of a race by knowing the souls of individuals, W. E. B. Du Bois combines history and stirring autobiography to reflect on the magnitude of American racism and to chart a path forward against oppression, and introduces the now-famous concepts of the color line, the veil, and double-consciousness.
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$25.00
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Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem
by Daniel R. Day
With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege white Americans over others.
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$18.00
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