Showing results by narrator "Leon Nixon" in All Categories

After Life is a collective history of how Americans experienced, navigated, commemorated, and ignored mass death and loss during the global COVID-19 pandemic, mass uprisings for racial justice, and the near presidential coup in 2021 following the 2020 election.

Zeke Armstrong never imagined he'd be back in Vermont, but here he is, living in Colebury and trying to rehab an injury that could mean an early retirement from pro basketball. Running into his former classmate, Mallory Barrett, shouldn't be a distraction. It shouldn't mean anything, so why is he accidentally on purpose showing up at the coffee shop where the beautiful writer spends her time?

Year after year after year, I trick myself into believing that I’m over it—that I’m over him. Then I see his face, and the feelings we once shared resurface. We were young, and we were in love, but it was a love I was willing to do anything for. He was someone I was willing to do anything for. Suddenly, he decided that my love wasn’t enough. While he went on with his life, mine was always stuck on pause. Then, I decided that love waits for no one and allowed it into my world again.

Black education was a subversive act from its inception. African Americans pursued education through clandestine means, often in defiance of law and custom, even under threat of violence. They developed what Jarvis Givens calls a tradition of "fugitive pedagogy"—a theory and practice of Black education in America. The enslaved learned to read in spite of widespread prohibitions; newly emancipated people braved the dangers of integrating all-White schools and the hardships of building Black schools.

"Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly." So begins La Marr Jurelle Bruce's urgent provocation and poignant meditation on madness in black radical art. Bruce theorizes four overlapping meanings of madness: the lived experience of an unruly mind, the psychiatric category of serious mental illness, the emotional state also known as "rage," and any drastic deviation from psychosocial norms.

Chance Washington only has a few things on his mind when he embarks on a trip back to his hometown. Completing the assignment for work that's sending him there in the first place, helping his mom make progress on her fixer-upper home, and catching up with some of his best friends who he doesn't get to see often enough. What is not a part of those plans is hooking up with the little sister of one of his best friends.

She’s an angel. And she doesn’t mind dancing with a demon. That’s why I’d move mountains, dry seas, and hydrate the desert if it made her happy. She brought goodness to the world. It was only right that I made it hers, along with the two tiny beauties that shared her hazel eyes and perfect smile. For them, I’d do whatever. For them, I’d become whoever.

Essence Knox never thought she'd be starting over at her age. After two decades of teaching math at Hardwood High, raising her daughters, and keeping everything together, she's faced with a quiet house and tough decisions. Selling the family home seems like the right move, but letting go of the past and the pain that comes with it is easier said than done. Little did she know, her fresh start would come in the form of a new colleague. Enter Xavier Sharpe, the retired military man turned high school teacher.

FBI Agent Alexander King has a special gift for catching vicious predators. He gets inside the twisted minds of psychopaths and hunts them down. However, this case in a small Georgia town is challenging his skills. A serial killer named the Angel Maker has kidnapped and killed six little Black girls. Local police did a lackluster investigation, thinking the girls were initially runaways. The Black community believes the case is racially motivated and that the force ignored all the clues. Tensions rise on both sides of town, threatening riots and more unrest.

A magnificently illustrated picture book biography of Barack Obama​: a tireless organizer, a brilliant orator, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and the first Black president of the United States of America. Before he became the president, Barack Obama was a little boy called Barry. Amid a happy...

She’s a gem..she's on an entirely different level than the women I’m accustomed to. She’s loyal and about her paper. That’s why I’d sacrifice the only friendships I’d ever known, wait for however long it took her to be ready, and happily sever ties with anyone who didn’t agree with—or was against—our union. The little spoiled brat that I once considered off-limits had given me a taste of her forbidden fruit, and there was nothing I’d stop at to maintain the privilege of burying my seeds in her garden.

First published in 1969, Black Theology and Black Power is the first systematic presentation of black theology that also introduced the voice of a young theologian who would shake the foundations of American theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundations for an interpretation of Christianity from the perspective of the oppressed that retains its urgency and challenge today.

Every Moment Holy, Vol. 2: Death, Grief, & Hope is a book of liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving - liturgies such as "A Liturgy for the Scattering of Ashes" or "A Liturgy for the Loss of a Spouse" or "A Liturgy for the Wake of a National Tragedy" or "A Liturgy for the Weighing of Last-Stage Medical Options." These are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even when, especially when, suffering and pain threaten to overwhelm us.

A New Yorker writer’s intimate, revealing account of Tupac Shakur’s life and legacy, timed to the fiftieth anniversary of his birth and twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. In the summer of 2020, Tupac Shakur’s single “Changes” became an anthem for the worldwide protests against the...

A large part of Goines' 39 years of life was spent being a successful pimp, a heif, an operator of corn liquor houses, an armed robber, and a small-time dope dealer. He lived the life of the streets, and out of that experience he created Prince, the anti-hero of Black Gangster. It's the story of the shocking underworld of Black organized crime and the fledgling Black "godfather" who goes from teenager ganglord to powerful Detroit mobster. Like the gangsters of the 1920s, he begins with bootlegging and branches out into every known crime.

Abomination. That's what Thomas Brewster's father decreed him before he took his first breath. He'd always feared it to be true, then fate sent him a blessing in the form of his first love, Louella Kemp. They were inseparable and planned to spend forever together. The NBA superstar was on top of the world. Until the unthinkable happened. In the blink of an eye, he lost everything, proving the curse was real.

Centering Black voices and the narratives of enslaved people, Breaking the Chains offers a thoroughly researched account of the ways people in bondage were themselves a driving force behind their own emancipation.

From a simple robbery gone horribly wrong to a grisly murder in a secret love dungeon, this stellar collection of crime fiction short stories showcases some of today's finest voices of color. Edited by Wall Street Journal best-selling author Abby L. Vandiver, this thrilling anthology will keep you on the edge of your seat. Includes "Midnight Escapade" by Jennifer Chow, "Lucky Thirteen" by Tracy Clark, "Murderers' Feast" by H.C. Chan, "In the Matter of Mabel and Bobby Jefferson" by Christopher Chambers, and many more.

Folk magic conjurer and root worker Orion Foxwood invites you to take a walk through his native Appalachia, through moonlit orchards and rural farms, to the dark of the crossroads.

Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen. In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country. At the time, it was a controversial move―it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people.