Showing results by narrator "Cary Hite" in All Categories

All John Lewis wanted was a library card, but in 1956, libraries were only for white people. That didn't seem fair to John, and so he spent a lifetime advocating for change and fighting against unfair laws until the laws changed. Finally, black people could eat at restaurants, see movies, vote in elections, and even get library cards.

A critic explores the paradox of finding community in “the dozens” while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email thread between friends on why we need an updated Green Book but for public toilets. All across the nation, “Karens” become illegal overnight. These are just a few of the hilarious worlds contained in Damon Young’s groundbreaking anthology featuring the best, funniest, and Blackest essays, short stories, letters, and rants.

Black literature is perhaps the most powerful, polarizing force in the modern American zeitgeist. Today—as Black novels draw authoritarian ire, as Black memoirs shape public debates, as Black polemics inspire protest petitions—it’s more important than ever to highlight the places that center these stories: Black bookstores. Traversing teeming metropolises and tiny towns, Prose to the People explores a these spaces, chronicling these Black bookstore's past and present lives.

Camouflaged Bruises is Jessica's journey set against the gender-limiting, woman-invalidating and homophobic environment of the 80s and 90s. Within these social confines, seventeen-year-old Jessica runs away from her abusive home, looking for security and camaraderie. She makes the cut and joins the United States Marine Corps, an elite military organization known to take care of their own. Determined to uphold the highest standards of the Marine Corps, Jessica becomes a star performer, surmounting rigorous physical training and tactical challenges.

Parish “Pain” Wells is a man freshly reintroduced to society, after serving time in state prison. Prior to his fall, Pain had been a heist man who showed the promise of someone who could go on to be a legend. His trajectory changed on the night he had made the mistake of accepting a ride from a friend, and found himself behind bars for the one crime he hadn’t committed. Several years later, Pain returns home to a world that wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. The only one who still remains in his corner is his ailing grandmother.

Examples of antiracist conversations highlight different ways to initiate dialogue, raise awareness, speak one's truth, and make clear, doable requests or demands for change. Drawing on her experience as a clinical psychologist, a nonviolent communication practitioner, and an Afro-Caribbean immigrant, Dr. Manning provides a model of antiracist dialogue with practical applications for individuals and organizations.

Its summer 1860, and former army Captain Nathan Chambers has returned home to Virginia to claim his inheritance: a large plantation with more than one hundred slaves. Nathan wants no part of slavery and intends to sell the farm and all its slaves. But even as he arrives home, enduring fearful and downcast stares from despondent black faces, he knows what he must do and the price he must pay for doing it.

Despite her unsavory upbringing, Loriana Simms vows not to let the fast, gritty lifestyle of the hood dismantle her innocence. With dreams of leaving what she calls home behind, Loriana's plans are abruptly placed on hold. While her circumstances have, in some measure, matured the bashful teen, they have also left her in an immense amount of distress. No longer meek to the world around her, Loriana comes into her own as a woman and finds herself caught up in the likes of the young hoodlum, Projex.

Dismayed at what she now has to consider her life, Loriana tries her best to balance it all. The unforeseen death of her mother has her suffocating in grief, feeling as if she’s lost it all. While struggling internally, she smiles on the outside to save face. That’s until she can no longer keep up her façade. When she least expects it, the breath of fresh air she was desperately gasping for is given. On a rollercoaster with her emotions, wondering how her first love became her first heartbreak, she finds herself. Those good days she prayed to God for had finally came around.