"Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history - a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. Drawing from a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical research, Larson reveals Tubman as a complex woman - brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. The descendant of the vibrant, matrilineal...

An illustrated biographical compilation of over fifty African American women from the 1700s through to the present day.

"Sitting in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is a rough cotton bag, called "Ashley's Sack," embroidered with just a handful of words that evoke a sweeping family story of loss and of love passed down through generations. In 1850s South Carolina, just before nine-year-old Ashley was sold, her mother, Rose, gave her a sack filled with just a few things as a token of her love. Decades later, Ashley's granddaughter,...

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as "Human Computers," calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women. Segregated from their white counterparts by Jim Crow laws, these "colored computers," as they were known, used slide rules, adding machines, and pencil and paper to support America's...

"Georgia decided to help the best way she knew how. She worked together with a group of women and together they purchased the supplies they needed--bread, lettuce, and chickens. And off they went to cook. The women brought food to the mass meetings that followed at the church. They sold sandwiches. They sold dinners in their neighborhoods. As the boycotters walked and walked, Georgia cooked and cooked. Georgia Gilmore was a cook at the National Lunch...

An account of the life of the influential jazz singer and civil rights advocate shares insights into her contributions as an African-American artist, drawing on inside sources to discuss her creative process and challenge misperceptions about her character. "Queen of Bebop brilliantly chronicles the life of jazz singer Sarah Vaughan, one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the twentieth century and a pioneer of women's and civil rights....

Find out about Katherine Johnson and how her calculations helped with some of the first flights into space. Discover why Katherine Johnson was a role model for black women working in science and which missions she worked on.

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private. A deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily...

"A collection of essays on race"-- "An extraordinary exquisitely written memoir (of sorts) that looks at race in a fearless, penetrating, honest, true way. ... 'I am black-and brown, too,' writes Emily Bernard. 'Brown is the body I was born into. Black is the body of the stories I tell.' These twelve telltale, connected, deeply personal essays explore, up close, the complexities and paradoxes, the haunting memories and ambushing realities, of growing...