In 1946 Clanton, Mississippi, World War II hero Pete Banning calmly and inexplicably kills his pastor and friend, the Reverend Dexter Bell, and refuses to defend his actions during the subsequent trial. Pete Banning was Clanton's favorite son, a returning war hero, the patriarch of a prominent family, a farmer, father, neighbor, and a faithful member of the Methodist church. Then one cool October morning in 1946. he rose early, drove into town, walked...

"Ephram Jenkins has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, "the kind of pretty it hurt to look at," is already quite damaged, but Ephram is forcibly drawn to her. As soon as she becomes a young woman and has any power of her own, Ruby flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York City. Years later, when a funeral forces her to return...

The acclaimed actor reveals the passion, spirituality, and intellectual fervor that have driven his life and career, citing the elements of his childhood that gave him his sense of worth and ethics.

"In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, photographs, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine black people's connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. In the 1920s, there were over one million black farmers; today there are just 45,000. Baszile explores this crisis, through the farmers' personal experiences. In their own words, middle aged and elderly black farmers explain why...

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. Their first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway,...

"An irresistibly accessible yet startlingly bold book of short stories and a novella, inspired by Black lives in America and featuring the gripping eponymous work "My Monticello.""-- Johnson's characters traverse Virginia's landscapes, still stained by some of America's most heinous acts, in pursuit of a place to call home. In each story, she reveals intimate moments within the nation's multitudes, featuring unforgettable characters who struggle...

Spike Lee is one of the most acclaimed and controversial directors of all time. Now five of his most provocative, thought-provoking films are available in one collection. From the breakout hit dramedy "Do the right thing" to the gritty, urban "Clockers, " Lee peels away life's layers, exposing the ironies, brutalities, rhythms and prejudices of the naked city in this powerful collector's set. Clockers: a film about the violent world of drug dealing...

As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood...

A young black man meets his white girlfriend's parents at their estate, only to find out that the situation is much more sinister than it appears.

Sixteen-year-old Katrell uses her witchy powers to talk to the dead and escape her home life, but when she disregards the dead's warnings to stop, dark forces begin to close in forcing Katrell to make some hard decisions. Clients pay Katrell to talk to their deceased loved ones, but it is not enough to support her unemployed mother and Mom's deadbeat boyfriend-of-the-week. When a ghost warns her to stop the summonings or she'll "burn everything down,"...