The first major biography of an American icon, comedian Bill Cosby. Based on extensive research and in-depth interviews with Cosby and more than sixty of his closest friends and associates, it is a frank, fun and fascinating account of his life and historic legacy.Far from the gentle worlds of his routines or TV shows, Cosby grew up in a Philadelphia housing project, the son of an alcoholic, largely absent father and a loving but overworked mother. With novelistic ...

A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he ...

Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenom...

From the bestselling author of The Afterlife of Malcolm X comes a brilliant, lively account of the Black Renaissance that burst forth in Pittsburgh from the 1920s through the 1950s—“Smoketown will appeal to anybody interested in black history and anybody who loves a good story…terrific, eminently readable…fascinating” (The Washington Post).Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble, but doom...

In a dramatic, moving work of historical reporting and personal discovery, Mark Whitaker, award-winning journalist, sets out to trace the story of what happened to his parents, a fascinating but star-crossed interracial couple, and arrives at a new understanding of the family dramas that shaped their lives—and his own.His father, “Syl” Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a...

Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis.In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenom...

A New York Public Library and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2025Published to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the first major study of Malcolm X’s influence in the sixty years since his assassination, exploring his enduring impact on culture, politics, and civil rights.Malcolm X has become as much of an American icon as Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King. But when he was murdered in 1965, he ...

Mark Whitaker's father, "Syl" Whitaker, was the charismatic grandson of slaves who grew up the child of black undertakers from Pittsburgh and went on to become a groundbreaking scholar of Africa. His mother, Jeanne Theis, was a shy World War II refugee from France whose father, a Huguenotpastor, helped hide thousands of Jews from the Nazis and Vichy police.They met in the mid-1950s, when he was a college student and she was his professor, and they carried on a secret romance...

The other great Renaissance of black culture, influence, and glamour burst forth joyfully in what may seem an unlikely place—Pittsburgh, PA—from the 1920s through the 1950s.Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country,...

Real immigrant perspectives of America’s immigration system, perfect for fans of The Book of Awesome Women, Dear America, or American Like Me.Positive and heroic stories. Far too often, immigrants are demonized and scapegoated, when they should be celebrated as heroes and revolutionaries. This audiobook strings together both triumphant and painful tales of immigrants who blazed trails and broke barriers in the fight for fundamental human ...

A provocative, personal, blazingly intelligent examination of one of the most vexing questions facing the United States today: Who is, and should be, a citizen?“[A] fascinating, urgently needed new book.”—Chicago Tribune**“How did ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ turn upside down to where we are today? Everyone needs to read this book, citizens and non-citizens alike. Brilliant!”—Sandra ...

The author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit—a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation’s fabric.Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1943, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one o...