Let Love Have the Last Word (Signed)
Courageous, insightful, brave, and characteristically authentic, Let Love Have the Last Word shares Common’s own unique and personal stories of the people and experiences that have led to a greater understanding of love and all it has to offer. It is a powerful call to action for a new generation of open hearts and minds, one that is sure to resonate for years to come.
An extraordinary look at privilege, discrimination, and the fallacy of post-racial America by Pulitzer Prize–winning cultural critic Margo Jefferson.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the forever First Lady of the United States.
Raised in the South Bronx projects, Jimmie Walker made his way out of the perilous ghetto thanks to an ability to make people laugh. Performing in small clubs alongside friends such as Richard Pryor, Freddie Prinze, David Brenner, and Richard Lewis; opening for Black Panther rallies; and emceeing at the Apollo and for Motown tours, he was a young, brash stand-up comedian for a new generation.
By landing the role of J.J. Evans on Good Times, Walker became an icon of the ’70s and beyond. The first young black sitcom star — dubbed “the black Fonzie” — his catchphrase “Dyn-o-mite!” remains an often-quoted indicator of the era. As the show’s breakout star, he navigated the pressures of a pop culture popularity that rendered J.J. into a talking doll (pull the string!). At the same time, he was the epicenter of a major controversy over black stereotypes. Walker candidly remembers the communication breakdowns on the set that contradicted the show’s image of a close-knit, blue-collar family. Meanwhile, he worked at his craft, including hiring then-unknowns David Letterman and Jay Leno to write jokes for him. When the Late Night War erupted, Walker had a uniquely personal perspective that he writes about here for the first time.
In Dyn-o-mite! he also reveals, in characteristic bemused if lacerating fashion, the lessons he’s learned along the way about self-reliance, freedom of speech (the n-word and more), and belief in the individual — subjects he frequently talks about on talk radio and television. Imparting a vivid, insiders’ look at the edgy scene of the ’70s and ’80s, perhaps the most groundbreaking and vibrant era in comedy history, Walker paints a portrait of the life and times of a quintessential road comic.
So tender yet courageous is this fierce family memoir that it makes mass incarceration nothing less than a new American tragedy.
In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age.
Brown’s story begins with growing up in an impoverished neighborhood in Philadelphia and attending a predominantly white school, where she first sensed what it meant to be black, female, and poor in America. She describes her political awakening during the bohemian years of her adolescence, and her time as a foot soldier for the Panthers, who seemed to hold the promise of redemption. And she tells of her ascent into the upper echelons of Panther leadership: her tumultuous relationship with the charismatic Huey Newton, who would become her lover and her nemesis; her experience with the male power rituals that would sow the seeds of the party's demise; and the scars that she both suffered and inflicted in that era’s paradigm-shifting clashes of sex and power. Stunning, lyrical, and acute, this is the indelible testimony of a black woman’s battle to define herself.
This book is Ms. Tyson’s abundant treasure to each of us: her life, in her words, just as she is
A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East.
Racism 101
A series of essays on race, offering her poetic insights into everything from higher education to Spike Lee, Star Trek, and John F. Kennedy.
Gemini
A young poet, attuned to the social problems of contemporary America, reveals her thoughts on the black experience