The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this “groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States” (Ibram X. Kendi)—the perfect companion to An Indigenous People’s History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the United States. An empowering and intersectional history that centers the stories of African American women across 400+ years, showing how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country. In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today. A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.

GOLD MEDALIST OF FOREWORD REVIEWS' 2015 INDIEFAB AWARDS IN WOMEN'S STUDIES What's wrong with black women? Not a damned thing! The Sisters Are Alright exposes anti–black-woman propaganda and shows how real black women are pushing back against distorted cartoon versions of themselves. When African women arrived on American shores, the three-headed hydra—servile Mammy, angry Sapphire, and lascivious Jezebel—followed close behind. In the '60s, the Matriarch, the willfully unmarried baby machine leeching off the state, joined them. These stereotypes persist to this day through newspaper headlines, Sunday sermons, social media memes, cable punditry, government policies, and hit song lyrics. Emancipation may have happened more than 150 years ago, but America still won't let a sister be free from this coven of caricatures. Tamara Winfrey Harris delves into marriage, motherhood, health, sexuality, beauty, and more, taking sharp aim at pervasive stereotypes about black women. She counters warped prejudices with the straight-up truth about being a black woman in America. “We have facets like diamonds,” she writes. “The trouble is the people who refuse to see us sparkling.”

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • CBC KIDS’ BOOK CHOICE AWARD WINNER Civil rights icon Ruby Bridges—who, at the age of six, was the first black child to integrate into an all-white elementary school in New Orleans—inspires readers and calls for action in this moving letter. Her elegant, memorable gift book is especially uplifting in the wake of Kamala Harris making US history as the first female, first Black, and first South Asian vice president–elect. Written as a letter from civil rights activist and icon Ruby Bridges to the reader, This Is Your Time is both a recounting of Ruby’s experience as a child who had to be escorted to class by federal marshals when she was chosen to be one of the first black students to integrate into New Orleans’ all-white public school system and an appeal to generations to come to effect change. This beautifully designed volume features photographs from the 1960s and from today, as well as stunning jacket art from The Problem We All Live With, the 1964 painting by Norman Rockwell depicting Ruby’s walk to school. Ruby’s honest and impassioned words, imbued with love and grace, serve as a moving reminder that “what can inspire tomorrow often lies in our past.” This Is Your Time will electrify people of all ages as the struggle for liberty and justice for all continues and the powerful legacy of Ruby Bridges endures.

Kristal Brent Zook explores the lives of contemporary African America women from all walks of life. Based on her travels across America and years of interviewing and building relationships with women from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds, she offers vivid archetypal portraits of a school principal in Georgia, a filmmaker in Los Angeles, a factory worker in Mississippi, a corporate executive in New York City, a prisoner in Seattle, and an organic farmer in Vermont, among others. Through these portraits, Black Women's Lives explores common overlapping themes while highlighting the shared dreams, hopes, and disappointments of ordinary women. This book also reveals the many challenges and inequalities that black women still face, and how far this nation has yet to travel if it is to live up to its promise to create an equal and just society for all citizens.

Arranged alphabetically from "Alice of Dunk's Ferry" to "Jean Childs Young," this volume profiles 312 Black American women who have achieved national or international prominence.

It's time for a REDEFINITION among black women in America. In its 2011 hardcover release, Black Woman Redefined was a top-selling book and took home a 2011 Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award from the African American Literary Awards. Author Sophia A. Nelson won the 2012 Champions of Diversity Award, given each year by diversity business executives in Fortune 100 companies. Black Woman Redefined was inspired in part by what Nelson calls “open season on accomplished black women": from Don Imus's name-calling of black female basketball players in 2007 and a 2009 Yale University study titled “Marriage Eludes High-Achieving Black Women," to the more recent revelation that First Lady Michelle Obama is concerned about being painted as an “angry, black woman." In Black Woman Redefined, Nelson sets out to change this cultural perception, taking readers on a no-holds-barred journey into the hearts and minds of accomplished black women to reveal truths, tribulations, and insights like never before. This groundbreaking book provides black women of a new generation with essential career and life-coaching advice. Based on never-before-done research on college-educated, career-driven black women, Nelson offers her fellow “sisters"—and those who know, love, and work with them—a feel-good volume for personal and professional success that empowers them without tearing others down.