Life Stories: Nonfiction Celebrating Black History Month

From civ­il rights to Fer­gu­son, Fran­chise reveals the untold his­to­ry of how fast food became one of the great­est gen­er­a­tors of Black wealth in America.

The untold sto­ry of the Har­vard class of ​’63, whose Black stu­dents fought to cre­ate their own iden­ti­ties on the cusp between inte­gra­tion and affir­ma­tive action.

Bet­tye Kearse — a descen­dant of an enslaved cook and, accord­ing to oral tra­di­tion, Pres­i­dent James Madi­son — shares her fam­i­ly sto­ry and explores the issues of lega­cy, race, and the pow­er­ful con­se­quences of telling the whole truth. 

Tells the sto­ry of The Comp­ton Cowboys‑a group of African-Amer­i­can men and women who defy stereo­types and con­tin­ue the proud, cen­turies-old tra­di­tion of Black cow­boys in the heart of one of Amer­i­ca’s most noto­ri­ous cities.

Describes the group of African-Amer­i­cans that joined the Roo­sevelt admin­is­tra­tion dur­ing the Great Depres­sion, form­ing the Black Cab­i­net, who worked to devise and rec­om­mend solu­tions to the exclu­sion and racism they faced as part of the New Deal.

The mov­ing true sto­ry of a group of young men grow­ing up on Chicago’s West side who form the first all-Black high school row­ing team in the nation, and in doing so not only trans­form a sport, but their lives.

An acclaimed cul­tur­al crit­ic presents the sto­ry of her jour­ney to under­stand her north­ern and south­ern roots, the Great Migra­tion, and the dis­place­ment of Black peo­ple across America.

Exam­ines the strug­gle of African-Amer­i­can women to achieve equal­i­ty and polit­i­cal pow­er by exam­in­ing the lives and work of Black women, includ­ing Maria Stew­art, Frances Ellen Watkins Harp­er and Fan­nie Lou Hamer.

A prize-win­ning his­to­ri­an tells the sto­ry of the Wall Street net­work judges, lawyers, police offi­cers and bankers who helped keep the ille­gal slave trade alive in ante­bel­lum New York City and the Black jour­nal­ist who worked to expose them.

A his­to­ry of Floyd McKissick­’s 1969 plan to build a Black city in North Car­oli­na, exam­in­ing the sto­ry of the ide­al­ists who set­tled there, the obsta­cles that derailed the project, and what Soul City’s saga says about Black oppor­tu­ni­ty, cap­i­tal­ism, and pow­er then and now.