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Carving Out a Humanity: Race, Rights, and Redemption by 
Hiding in Plain Sight: Black women, the law and the making of a white Argentine Republic by Winner of The Association of Black Women Historians 2020 Letitia Woods-Brown Award for the best book in African American Women's History Details how African-descended women's societal, marital, and sexual decisions forever reshaped the racial makeup of Argentina Argentina promotes itself as a country of European immigrants. This makes it an exception to other Latin American countries, which embrace a more mixed--African, Indian, European--heritage. Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic traces the origins of what some white Argentines mischaracterize as a "black disappearance" by delving into the intimate lives of black women and explaining how they contributed to the making of a "white" Argentina. Erika Denise Edwards has produced the first comprehensive study in English of the history of African descendants outside of Buenos Aires in the late colonial and early republican periods, with a focus on how these women sought whiteness to better their lives and that of their children. Edwards argues that attempts by black women to escape the stigma of blackness by recategorizing themselves and their descendants as white began as early as the late eighteenth century, challenging scholars who assert that the black population drastically declined at the end of the nineteenth century because of the whitening or modernization process. She further contends that in Córdoba, Argentina, women of African descent (such as wives, mothers, daughters, and concubines) were instrumental in shaping their own racial reclassifications and destinies. This volume makes use of a wealth of sources to relate these women's choices. The sources consulted include city censuses and notarial and probate records that deal with free and enslaved African descendants; criminal, ecclesiastical, and civil court cases; marriages and baptisms records and newsletters. These varied sources provide information about the day-to-day activities of cordobés society and how women of African descent lived, formed relationships, thrived, and partook in the transformation of racial identities in Argentina. 
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the roots of Black travel in America by A New York Times Notable Book of 2020+‹ The first book to explore the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, a travel guide for black motorists Published from 1936 to 1966, the Green Book was hailed as the "black travel guide to America." At that time, it was very dangerous and difficult for African-Americans to travel because black travelers couldn't eat, sleep, or buy gas at most white-owned businesses. The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for black travelers. It was a resourceful and innovative solution to a horrific problem. It took courage to be listed in the Green Book, and Overground Railroad celebrates the stories of those who put their names in the book and stood up against segregation. It shows the history of the Green Book, how we arrived at our present historical moment, and how far we still have to go when it comes to race relations in America. 
Sister Style: The politics of appearance for Black women political elites by "They don't think I'm viable, because I'm a Black woman with natural hair and no husband." This comment was made by Stacey Abrams shortly before the 2018 Democratic primary after she became the first Black woman to win a majory party's nomination for governor. Abrams' sentiment reflects the wider environment for Black women in politics, in which racist and sexist cultural ideas have long led Black women to be demeaned and fetishized for their physical appearance. In Sister Style, Nadia E. Brown and Danielle Casarez Lemi argue that Black women's political experience and the way that voters evaluate them is shaped overtly by their skin tone and hair texture, with hair being a particular point of scrutiny. They ask what the politics of appearance for Black women mean for Black women politicians and Black voters, and how expectations about self-presentation differ for Black women versus Black men, White men, and White women. Black women running for office face pressure, often from campaign consultants and even close colleagues, to change their style in order to look more like White women. However, as this book shows, Black women candidates and elected officials react differently to these pressures depending on factors like age and incumbency. Moreover, Brown and Lemi delve into the ways in which Black voters react to Black female candidates based on appearance. They base their argument, in part, on focus groups with Black women candidates and elected officials, and show that there are generational differences that determine what sorts of styles Black women choose to adopt and to what extent they change their physical appearance based on external expectations.
Vanguard: How black women broke barriers, won the vote, and insisted on equality for all by The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power -- and how it transformed America. In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own. In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women -- Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more -- who were the vanguard of women's rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.
Black Buck by A New York Times Bestseller A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick! "Askaripour closes the deal on the first page of this mesmerizing novel, executing a high wire act full of verve and dark, comic energy." --Colson Whitehead, author of The Nickel Boys "A hilarious, gleaming satire as radiant as its author. Askaripour has announced himself as a major talent of the school of Ralph Ellison, Paul Beatty, Fran Ross, and Ishmael Reed. Full of quick pacing, frenetic energy, absurd--yet spot on--twists and turns, and some of the funniest similes I've ever read, this novel is both balm and bomb." --Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street--a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems. There's nothing like a Black salesman on a mission. An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor. After enduring a "hell week" of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as "Buck," a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he's hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game. Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America's workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.
The Prophets by Instant New York Times Bestseller "May this book cast its spell on all of us, restore to us some memory of our most warrior and softest selves." --The New York Times Book Review "A new kind of epic...A grand achievement...While The Prophets' dreamy realism recalls the work of Toni Morrison...its penetrating focus on social dynamics stands out more singularly." --Entertainment Weekly A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence. Isaiah was Samuel's and Samuel was Isaiah's. That was the way it was since the beginning, and the way it was to be until the end. In the barn they tended to the animals, but also to each other, transforming the hollowed-out shed into a place of human refuge, a source of intimacy and hope in a world ruled by vicious masters. But when an older man--a fellow slave--seeks to gain favor by preaching the master's gospel on the plantation, the enslaved begin to turn on their own. Isaiah and Samuel's love, which was once so simple, is seen as sinful and a clear danger to the plantation's harmony. With a lyricism reminiscent of Toni Morrison, Robert Jones, Jr., fiercely summons the voices of slaver and enslaved alike, from Isaiah and Samuel to the calculating slave master to the long line of women that surround them, women who have carried the soul of the plantation on their shoulders. As tensions build and the weight of centuries--of ancestors and future generations to come--culminates in a climactic reckoning, The Prophets masterfully reveals the pain and suffering of inheritance, but is also shot through with hope, beauty, and truth, portraying the enormous, heroic power of love.
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