Leaving Cecil Street

Author: Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $6.99

Deal price: $0.99

Deal starts: September 22, 2024

Deal ends: September 22, 2024

Description:

A riveting tale about a back-room abortion that has devastating consequences for two teenage girls on a close knit Philadelphia block circa 1972

Block parties were king in this West Philadelphia neighborhood, especially the year Cecil Street decided to have two. These energetic, sensual street celebrations serve as backdrops to the story of best friends Neet and Shay and their families.

When Neet becomes pregnant by one of the corner boys, Shay arranges an abortion that goes terribly awry when Neet begins to hemorrhage. Neet is left unable to bear children and to Shay’s horror slips under the spell of her mother Alberta’s severe, esoteric religious beliefs. Shay is left to struggle with the grief of losing a cherished friendship, while she also bears witness to the the disintegration of her parents’ marriage. The story climaxes during the second block party, during which time it is discovered that Neet and Alberta have disappeared from Cecil Street—the holy-roller mother, Alberta, having finally been set free from the shackles of her church by none other than Shay’s father.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Author: Todd S. Purdum

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $11.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 17, 2024

Deal ends: September 17, 2024

Description:

The story of the behind-the-scenes political battle to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act: “Excellent . . . a highly readable play-by-play.” —The AtlanticIt was a turbulent time in America—a time of sit-ins, freedom rides, a March on Washington, and a governor standing in the schoolhouse door—when John F. Kennedy sent Congress a bill to bar racial discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. Countless civil rights measures had died on Capitol Hill in the past. But this one was different because, as one influential senator put it, it was “an idea whose time has come.”In this revealing book, Todd S. Purdum tells the story of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, recreating the legislative maneuvering and the larger-than-life characters who made its passage possible. From the Kennedy brothers to Lyndon Johnson, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Hubert Humphrey and Everett Dirksen, Purdum shows how these all-too-human figures managed, in just over a year, to create a bill that prompted the longest filibuster in the history of the US Senate—yet was ultimately adopted with overwhelming bipartisan support. He evokes the high purpose and low dealings that marked the creation of this monumental law, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of new interviews that bring to life this signal achievement in American history—an example in our own troubled time of what is possible when bipartisanship, decency, and patience rule the day.“Brilliantly rendered and emotionally powerful—a riveting account of one of the most dramatic and significant moments in American history.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin“Today’s reader will be startled, if not astonished, by how the bill made its way through Congress.” —The Washington Post“Worthy, timely, and intelligent.” —The New Yorker“A first-rate narrative.” —The Wall Street Journal

Riot and Remembrance

Author: James S. Hirsch

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $9.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 15, 2024

Deal ends: September 15, 2024

Description:

With a new preface, a "profound, chilling, and heartbreaking, contribution to American history” that investigates the causes of the twentieth century's deadliest race riot and how its legacy has scarred and shaped a community (Boston Globe). On May 30, 1921, a misunderstanding between a white elevator operator and a Black delivery boy escalated into the worse race riot in U.S. history. In this compelling and deeply human account, James Hirsch investigates how the Tulsa riot erupted, how it was covered up, and how the survivors and their descendants fought for belated justice. “Superbly researched and engagingly written” (Fort Worth Morning Star), Riot and Remembrance powerfully chronicles one community’s effort to overcome a horrific legacy, revealing how the segregation of history and memory affects all Americans a hundred years later. “The best book yet on the Tulsa riots, and one that should be required reading.”—Seattle Times

Dear Martin

Author: Nic Stone

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $8.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 14, 2024

Deal ends: September 14, 2024

Description:

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WILLIAM C. MORRIS AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME   After a traffic stop turns violent at the hands of the police, a young Black teen grapples with racism—and what it means for his future. Critically acclaimed author Nic Stone boldly tackles America’s troubled history with race relations in her gripping debut novel. "Raw and gripping." –JASON REYNOLDS, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism, and You Justyce is a good kid, an honor student, and always there to help a friend—but none of that matters to the police officer who just put him in handcuffs without cause. When faced with injustice, Justyce looks to the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for answers. But do they hold up anymore? He starts a journal to Dr. King to find out. Then comes the day Justyce and a friend spark the fury of an off-duty cop. Words fly, shots are fired, and the boys get caught in the crosshairs. But in the media fallout, it's Justyce who is under attack. "A must-read!” –ANGIE THOMAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hate U Give "Powerful, wrenching.” –JOHN GREEN, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down

All We Were Promised

Author: Ashton Lattimore

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $13.99

Deal price: $2.99

Deal starts: September 08, 2024

Deal ends: September 08, 2024

Description:

A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia—“a gripping novel about standing up to impossible odds” (People, Best New Books)The rebel . . . the socialite . . . and the fugitive. Together, they will risk everything for one another in this “beguiling story of friendship, deception, and women crossing boundaries in the name of freedom” (Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends).BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB PICK • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR: Essence, Paste, BookBub, SheReads, Scary MommyPhiladelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress, and she’s desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, in a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.

The Deep

Author:

Category: African-American & Black Interest

Regular price: $12.99

Deal price: $1.99

Deal starts: September 06, 2024

Deal ends: September 06, 2024

Description:

Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping. Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are. The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping.