African Americans in The Books Store

Walker's Appeal represents one of the earliest African-centered discourses on an oppressed people's right to freedom. African American political philosophy has evolved from many of the themes that it articulates. Order David Walker's Appeal here.

“Once in a while a book comes along that projects the spirit of an era; this is one of them . . . Vibrant and expressive . . . A well-researched and well-written work.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer With the rallying cry of “Black Power!” in 1966, a group of black activists, including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton, turned their backs on Martin Luther King’s pacifism and, building on Malcolm X’s legacy, pioneered a radical new approach to the fight for equality. Drawing on original archival research and more than sixty original oral histories, Peniel E. Joseph vividly invokes the way in which Black Power redefined black identity and culture and in the process redrew the landscape of American race relations. In a series of character-driven chapters, we witness the rise of Black Power groups such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panthers, and with them, on both coasts of the country, a fundamental change in the way Americans understood the unfinished business of racial equality and integration.
Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour traces the history of the Black Power movement, that storied group of men and women who would become American icons of the struggle for racial equality.

In the Spirit of Martin is the companion book to the first museum exhibition -- opening in January 2002 at the Smithsonian Institution -- to demonstrate the compelling outpouring of responses to Dr. King’s life. This richly illustrated, large-format book features the work of more than 150 important African American artists as well as other prominent traditional and visionary artists. Original essays by Bernice Johnson Reagon, Julius Lester, June Jordan, John Lewis, Stanley Crouch, and others enrich this celebration of the leader of the Civil Rights movement, one of history’s most important figures.