Randall Kennedy takes on not just a word, but our laws, attitudes, and culture with bracing courage and intelligence—with a range of reference that extends from the Jim Crow south to Chris Rock routines and the O. J. Simpson trial. It’s “the nuclear bomb of racial epithets,” a word that whites have employed to wound and degrade African Americans for three centuries. Paradoxically, among many Black people it has become a term of affection and even empowerment. The word, of course, is nigger, and in this candid, lucidly argued book the distinguished legal scholar Randall Kennedy traces its origins, maps its multifarious connotations, and explores the controversies that rage around it. Should Blacks be able to use nigger in ways forbidden to others? Should the law treat it as a provocation that reduces the culpability of those who respond to it violently? Should it cost a person his job, or a book like Huckleberry Finn its place on library shelves?

Comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory’s million-copy-plus bestselling memoir—now in trade paperback for the first time. “Powerful and ugly and beautiful...a moving story of a man who deeply wants a world without malice and hate and is doing something about it.”—The New York Times Fifty-five years ago, in 1964, an incredibly honest and revealing memoir by one of the America's best-loved comedians and activists, Dick Gregory, was published. With a shocking title and breathtaking writing, Dick Gregory defined a genre and changed the way race was discussed in America. Telling stories that range from his hardscrabble childhood in St. Louis to his pioneering early days as a comedian to his indefatigable activism alongside Medgar Evers and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gregory's memoir riveted readers in the sixties. In the years and decades to come, the stories and lessons became more relevant than ever, and the book attained the status of a classic. The book has sold over a million copies and become core text about race relations and civil rights, continuing to inspire readers everywhere with Dick Gregory's incredible story about triumphing over racism and poverty to become an American legend.

The scathing second novel by the legendary poet, musician and Godfather of Rap is a work of “biting social satire” (Daily Express). Originally published in 1972, Gil Scott-Heron’s striking novel The Nigger Factory is a powerful parable of the way in which human beings are conditioned to think, drawing inspiration from Scott-Heron’s own experiences as a student in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Earl Thomas, student body president at Sutton University, is in a difficult position: struggling with the fact that even a historically black college could be part of a system that still privileges whites, he’s also threatened by his fellow students, members of radical activist group MJUMBE. Claiming the time has come for revolution, not reform, the leaders of MJUMBE are poised not only to bring Earl down personally, but also to instigate larger scale acts of violence. An electrifying novel, The Nigger Factory is a penetrating examination of the different forms of resistance and the motivations behind them, and a major document of an era of black thought.

A discussion of race relations and of a philosophy of life for African-Americans.

The first, and most obvious questions, which should be asked are, "What are niggers? Who turned Africans into niggers? When were Africans turned into niggers? Why were Africans turned into niggers, and how were Africans turned into niggers? These are the questions, which this book endeavors to answer. Although this book talks about White Supremacy, and the effects of White Supremacy on Black people, this book is not about White people. This book is not about blaming White people, or having any hatred for White people. "Blame and Hatred are distractions," and when we spend our time blaming and hating White people, we are wasting valuable time; time that could instead be used to improve, and empower us as a people. Black people must awaken that "Spiritual Afrakan" inside of them!

More than any other black leader, H. Rap Brown, chairman of the radical Black Power organization Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), came to symbolize the ideology of black revolution. This autobiography—which was first published in 1969, went through seven printings and has long been unavailable—chronicles the making of a revolutionary. It is much more than a personal history, however; it is a call to arms, an urgent message to the black community to be the vanguard force in the struggle of oppressed people. Forthright, sardonic, and shocking, this book is not only illuminating and dynamic but also a vitally important document that is essential to understanding the upheavals of the late 1960s. University of Massachusetts professor Ekwueme Michael Thelwell has updated this edition, covering Brown's decades of harassment by law enforcement agencies, his extraordinary transformation into an important Muslim leader, and his sensational trial.