In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man, has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration...

The life of the eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was a slave until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty.

Presents short biographies of ninety-five black Americans from colonial to contemporary times, highlighting their personal achievements and their resulting contributions to the growth of American society.

Paintings and brief accounts present the accomplishments of twenty leading African Americans from Frederick Douglass to the present, including reformers, athletes, artists, and remarkable individuals in other fields.

Profiles thirty-five prominent men in African American history, including James Armistead Lafayette, Thurgood Marshall, Alvin Ailey, and Leland Melvin.

Traces over four centuries of African American history, drawing on personal journals, interviews, and archival materials to document times ranging from the Colonial period and slavery through the Civil War and the Civil Rights era.

Presents a history of African American visual arts and artists from the days of slavery to the present.

Untold numbers of black men and women in America have achieved great things against the odds. In this insightful book, award-winning author Tonya Bolden commemorates the lives of sixteen black individuals who dared to dream, take risks, and chart courses to success. They were pathfinders. In these pages you will meet Venture Smith, an African man who was enslaved in America but later bought his own freedom; Richard Potter, a magician whose methods...