Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications $3.50
This autobiographical account by a former slave is one of the few extant narratives written by a woman. Written and published in 1861, it delivers a powerful portrayal of the brutality of slave life. Jacobs speaks frankly of her master's abuse and her eventual escape, in a tale of dauntless spirit and faith.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Cassandra Campbell $35.00
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could...

The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics) by Penguin Classics $13.00
Du Bois' 1903 collection of essays is a thoughtful, articulate exploration of the moral and intellectual issues surrounding the perception of blacks within American society.

How to Be Black by Harper $24.99
If You Don't Buy This Book, You're a Racist. Have you ever been called "too black" or "not black enough"? Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University,...

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Simon & Brown $6.75
Published in 1845, this autobiography powerfully details the life of the internationally famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838 - how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and drivers, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. In his...

Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Penguin Classics) by Louis R. Harlan $11.00
Nineteenth-century African American businessman, activist, and educator Booker Taliaferro Washington's "Up from Slavery" is one of the greatest American autobiographies ever written. Its mantras of black economic empowerment, land ownership, and self-help inspired generations of black leaders, including Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and Louis Farrakhan. In rags-to-riches fashion,...

An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by Valerie Salembier $25.00
“Excuse me lady, do you have any spare change? I am hungry.”When I heard him, I didn’t really hear him. His words were part of the clatter, like a car horn or someone yelling for a cab. They were, you could say, just noise—the kind of nuisance New Yorkers learn to tune out. So I walked right by him, as if he wasn’t there. But then, just a few yards past him, I stopped. And then—and...

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Christian Large Print $17.99
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas. No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless-until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world...

Black Like Me (50th Anniversary Edition) by John Howard Griffin $7.99
The setting is the deep South in 1959. What began as a scientific research project ended up fueling the racial upheavals in 1960s America. When John Howard Griffin dyed his white skin to black to find out for himself if people are discriminated against based on skin color alone, he was not prepared for what he discovered. The rest is history.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Ballantine Books $6.99
Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age–and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San...