Celebrating Black History Month
At Atria Books, we are proud to publish a diverse list of books and grateful to the men and women who write them. This month we celebrate black history by showcasing excerpts from books by prominent African-American authors. Each title is listed below, accompanied by the respective author’s bio. Check back daily throughout the month of February for more. Happy reading
Life Lit by Some Large Vision by Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis appeared in numerous Broadway and Hollywood productions, including I’m Not Rappaport, The Defenders, The Stand, Jungle Fever, Evening Shade, and The Client. He was also the author of several plays, teleplays, and children’s books. He passed away in February 2005, still active in his work at the age of eighty-seven.
Rock My Soul by bell hooks
bell hooks is a cultural critic, a feminist theorist, and the renowned author of more than twenty books. A charismatic speaker, she divides her time between teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. She lives in Kentucky and New York City.
Them by Nathan McCall
Nathan McCall, author of Makes Me Wanna Holler, has worked as a journalist for The Washington Post. Currently, he teaches in the African American Studies Department at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Walter Mosley is the New York Times bestselling author of five Easy Rawlins mysteries: Devil in A Blue Dress, A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty, and A Little Yellow Dog; three non-mystery novels, Blue Light, Gone Fishin’, and R. L.’s Dream; two collections of stories featuring Socrates Fortlow, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield Wolf Award, and which was an HBO movie; and a nonfiction book, Workin’ On The Chain Gang. Mosley is also the author of the Leonid McGill, and Fearless Jones mystery series, The Tempest Tales and Six Easy Pieces. He is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, a founder of the PEN American Center Open Book Committee, and is on the board of directors of the National Book Awards. A native of Los Angeles, he now lives in New York City.
My Life, As I See It by Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick was born in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1940. Her reputation as hit maker has been firmly etched into the public consciousness, thanks to nearly sixty charted hits, many of which have become pop music classics. As a performer and five-time Grammy Award winner, Dionne has charmed and entertained audiences worldwide.
My Soul to Take by Tananarive Due
Tananarive Due is an American Book Award-winning, Essence bestselling author of Blood Colony, The Living Blood, The Good House, and Joplin’s Ghost. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her blog at TananariveDue.blogspot.com.
Glow by Rick James
Rick James was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer, best known for popularizing funk music in the late 1970s and early 1980s thanks to million-selling hits.
Hungry Heart by Gordon Park
Gordon Parks’s retrospective book of art photography, Half Past Autumn, published in 1997, coincided with an exhibition organized by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., which traveled in the United States from that year until 2003, and an HBO documentary that aired on November 30, 2000. He has authored numerous books of art, fiction, memoir (including A Star for Noon), photographs, and a CD of his music (2000). He published The Learning Tree, a novel, in 1963, and three previous autobiographies, A Choice of Weapons, To Smile in Autumn, and Voices in the Mirror. He died in March 2006 at his home in Manhattan. He was 93.
Let it Go by T.D. Jakes
T.D. Jakes is the CEO of TDJ Enterprises, LLP; founder and senior pastor of The Potter’s House of Dallas, Inc.; and the New York Times bestselling author of Making Great Decisions (previously titled Before You Do), Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits, and Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven, a New York Times, USA TODAY, and Publishers Weekly bestseller. He has won and been nominated for numerous awards, including Essence magazine’s President’s Award in 2007 for Reposition Yourself, a Grammy in 2004, and NAACP Image awards. He has been the host of national radio and television broadcasts, is the star of BET’s Mind, Body and Soul, and is regularly featured on the highly rated Dr. Phil Show and Oprah’s Lifeclass. He lives in Dallas with his wife and five children. Visit T.D. Jakes online at TDJakes.com.
Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
Lalita Tademy is the author Cane River, a New York Times bestselling novel and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection, and its critically acclaimed sequel Red River. She lives in Northern California.
One Day It’ll All Make Sense by Common
Rashid Lynn, aka, Common, a film and television actor and award-winning music artist, lives in Los Angeles. An independent publisher/author of books for children, including The Mirror and Me and I Like You but I Love Me, this is his first book for adults.
The Butler by Wil Haygood
A Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow and a writer for the Washington Post, Wil Haygood has been described as a cultural historian. He is the author of a trio of iconic biographies. His King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., told the story of the enigmatic New York congressman and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. That was followed — after publication of a family memoir — by In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis, Jr., which was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor Music Biography Award, the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Legacy Award, and the Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In 2009, he wrote Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson, which told the story of the famed New York pugilist known as much for his prowess in the ring as his elegant style outside of it. Haygood is an associate producer of Lee Daniels’ The Butler.
Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness by Touré
Touré is a cohost of MSNBC’s The Cycle and a columnist for Time.com. He is the author of four books, including Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness?, a New York Times and Washington Post notable book, and I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon. He lives in Brooklyn.
The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah
Sister Souljah is best known for her work as a political activist and educator of underclass urban youth. A graduate of Rutgers University, she is a beloved personality in her own community. She lives in Jersey City with her husband and son.
Addicted by Zane
Zane is the New York Times bestselling author of Afterburn, The Heat Seekers, Dear G-Spot, Gettin’ Buck Wild, The Hot Box, Total Eclipse of the Heart, Nervous, Skyscraper, Love is Never Painless, Shame on It All, and The Sisters of APF; the ebook short stories I’ll be Home for Christmas and Everything Fades Away; and editor for the Flava anthology series, including Z-Rated and Busy Bodies. Her TV series, Zane’s Sex Chronicles, and The Jump Off are featured on Cinemax, and her bestselling novel Addicted is a major motion picture with Lionsgate Films. She is the publisher of Strebor Books, an imprint of Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, and lives in the Washington, DC, area with her family. Visit her online at EroticaNoir.com.
Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage is an award-winning playwright whose play Flyin’ West was the most-produced new play in the country in 1994 and a bestselling author whose novels include What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, I Wish I Had a Red Dress, Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do, and Baby Brother’s Blues, among others. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
If Your Back’s Not Bent by Dorothy Cottton
Dorothy Cotton is lifelong civil rights activist who was the highest ranking woman in the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC). She is a speaker, singer, peacemaker, and visionary dedicated to social justice. She lives in Ithaca, New York.
Afeni Shakur by Jasmine Guy
Jasmine Guy has known Afeni Shakur for nearly a decade, having met her via Afeni’s son, Tupac. A multitalented performer, Guy began her career as a dancer for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She moved to acting and television, however, with the starring role of Whitley Gilbert on the hit series A Different World. During the show’s six-season run, Jasmine made her film debut in Spike Lee’s School Daze and went on to costar in Eddie Murphy’s Harlem Nights. Her other big and small screen credits include Kla$h, Diamond Men, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Any Day Now, Linc’s, Feast of All Saints, and her current role as Roxie in the Showtime series Dead Like Me. Jasmine is married with one child. This is her first book.
12 Years a Slave by Northrup Solomon
Solomon Northup (1808–c.1864–75) was a free-born African American from Saratoga Springs, New York, who was kidnapped into slavery in 1841. After his escape, he became an abolitionist and published his memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (1853). He gave many lectures in support of the abolitionist causes and aided in the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves.
The Black Male Handbook by Kevin Powell
Kevin Powell, a native of Jersey City, New Jersey, is the author or editor of eleven previous books. He is a native of Jersey City, New Jersey. Thanks to a college financial aid package, he studied at Rutgers University and has gone on to write for publications such as The Huffington Post, CNN.com, Esquire, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, Vibe, and the Guardian. He is also the president and cofounder of BK Nation, an American organization focused on civil rights, human rights, and equal opportunities for all people. Powell is a proud long-time resident of Brooklyn, New York.
A Mission from God by James Meredith
James Meredith was born on a small farm in Mississippi in 1933 and served in the United States Air Force for nine years. Meredith risked his life when he successfully applied the laws of integration and became the first black student at the University of Mississippi. He earned a law degree at Columbia University Law School and became an entrepreneur, speaker and conservative activist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Three Years in Mississippi. Today James Meredith is a tree farmer and grandfather in Jackson, Mississippi, helping to raise his grandchildren.
William Doyle is the award-winning author of Inside the Oval Office: The White House Tapes; An American Insurrection: the Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962; and A Soldier’s Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq. He lives in New York.
Red Hats by Damon Wayans
Damons Wayans, author of New York Times bestseller Bootleg, and the fourth-eldest of ten in one of America’s most famous and successful Hollywood families, is an award-winning actor, stand-up comedian, writer, and producer. He made his film debut in Eddie Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop, became famous as one of the ensemble cast of his brother Keenen Ivory Wayans’s hit show, In Living Color, and starred in his own popular sitcom, My Wife and Kids. Red Hats is his first novel. He lives in Los Angeles.
‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky by David Henderson
The poet and writer David Henderson was a founding member of the Umbra Poets, an influential collective of poets and writers who were central to the Black Arts Movement. His books include De Mayor of Harlem and Neo-California. He has been widely published in anthologies and magazines, including The Def Jam Poetry Reader, The Paris Review, and Essence. He has read from his poetry for the permanent archives of the Library of Congress. Born in Harlem and raised in Harlem and the Bronx, Henderson now lives in downtown New York City.
South by Southwest by Blair Underwood
Blair Underwood is an author and award-winning actor, director, and producer. He lives in Los Angeles, California. Visit his website at Official.BlairUnderwood.com.
Spiritual Liberation by Michael Bernard-Beckwith
As one of the foremost spiritual leaders, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, and a featured teacher to The Secret, Michael Bernard Beckwith is a powerful force for change. As a cofounder of the Association for Global New Thought and the Season for Nonviolence, Beckwith combines spiritual, educational, scientific, governmental, economic, and social elements. He teaches meditation, scientific prayer, conducts retreats, and speaks at conferences and seminars around the world. He is the originator of the Life Visioning Process and author of Inspirations of the Heart, 40 Day Mind Fast Soul Feast, and A Manifesto of Peace.
Freedom by Any Means by Betty DeRamus
A veteran and award winning journalist, DeRamus was the jury’s pick and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. She has been awarded a Michigan Press Association Award, as well as a Deems Taylor award for a profile of Roberta Flack published in Essence.
DeRamus was one of an international group of select journalists who toured Central African refugee camps under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and one of a small group of journalists outside Voerster prison in 1990 when Nelson Mandela finally left his cell.
She has wriiten about African-American history for Essence, Time-Life, North Star Journal, and Black World. She is a former commentator for The Detroit News, The Detroit Free Press, The Michigan Chronicle, and the British Broadcasting Company.
The Man from Essence by Edward Lewis
Edward Lewis, propelled by the extraordinary success of Essence magazine, has become one of the most successful and respected magazine publishers in the country. In 1969, he cofounded Essence and later founded Latina magazine. Mr. Lewis was honored with the Henry Johnson Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award, the Time, Inc. Henry Luce Award, and was a 2014 inductee into the Advertising Hall of Fame by the American Advertising Federation. He is the former chairman of the Magazine Publishers of America and currently serves as Senior Advisor for Solera Capital, a New York–based private equity firm.
