Black Was the Ink

The true story of Robert Smalls, a slave steamboat wheelman who commandeered a Confederate ship during the Civil War and escaped with his family and crew to freedom.

This powerful activity book will engage hands, hearts, and minds as it introduces children to the guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The life story of Vivien Thomas, an African American surgical technician who developed the first procedure used to perform open-heart surgery on children.

A timely, inspiring picture book biography of the dynamic twentieth-century educator, activist, and politician Shirley Chisholm.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, this beautiful biography of Maya Angelou describes how she rose above a childhood of trauma and emotional pain to become one of the most inspiring voices of our lifetime.

An updated and redesigned edition of an award-winning biography of Paul Robeson, who overcame racial discrimination to become an international entertainer and civil rights activist. Includes a new introduction and afterword by the author, focusing on Robeson's legacy.

The Hate U Give meets The Lovely Bones in this unflinching graphic novel about the afterlife of a young man killed by an off-duty police officer, co-illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist John Jennings.

A young girl, who has just moved to her parents' hometown, realizes that she has come home after the African American emancipation celebration of Juneteenth.

A biography of John Lewis, one of the "Big Six" civil rights leaders of the 1960s, focusing on his involvement in Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

A picture book biography of tennis player Arthur Ashe, who began his career playing tennis as a child on the segregated courts as a child in Virginia and went on to become the top tennis player in the world.

You've seen the building. Now meet the man whose life went into it.

On a December day in 1955, Rosa Parks changed the course of history when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.

The story of Mason Steele, an African American boy in 1960s Greenville, North Carolina, who relies on his inner strength and his typing skills to break racial barriers after he begins attending a "whites-only" high school.

From the award-winning author of How I Became a Ghost, a tale of unlikely friendship and miracles. When Martha Tom helps Lil Mo and his family escape from the plantation across the river, it's just the beginning of a Choctaw adventure of a lifetime.

Through the help of a ghostly ancestor, sixteen-year-old Malcolm is sent on a journey through Reconstruction-era America to find his place in modern-day Black progress.

This historical fiction picture book reveals the unknown story of Lilly Ann Granderson, an African-American teacher who risked her life to teach others during slavery.

A moving story about young Frederick Douglass and his mother, who walks twelve miles at night from a nearby plantation to visit him.

Mentu, an enslaved child, learns about the culture of his people from his grandmother, Twi in this Gullah folk tale of an insurrection at Teakettle Creek.

The inspiring biography of Ira Aldridge, a Black actor who overcame racism to become one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of the nineteenth century.

The inspiring biography of self-taught (outsider) artist Bill Traylor, a former slave who at the age of eighty-five began to draw pictures based on his memories and observations of rural and urban life in Alabama.

The story of the African American abolitionist who, in one dramatic incident, discovered the meaning of freedom.

The acclaimed biography-in-verse about the life and times of Dave, an enslaved potter who inscribed his works with short poems during the years leading up to the Civil War.

Garrett Morgan, a prolific African American inventor and entrepreneur, must test his latest invention in a daring rescue after an explosion at the Cleveland Waterworks.

A biography of James Van Der Zee, innovative and celebrated African American photographer of the Harlem Renaissance.

A biography of William "Doc" Key, a formerly enslaved man and self-trained veterinarian who taught his horse, Jim, to read, write, and do math, and who together with Jim became a famous traveling performance act and proponent for the humane treatment of animals around the turn of the twentieth century.

i see the rhythmis an inspiring celebration of African American music and the far-reaching impact it has had on the world.

The inspirational story of William "Bill" Lewis, a hardworking blacksmith who slowly saved his money and bought the freedom of each and every member of his enslaved family.

More than half a century after her family moved North to find a better life, artist Michele Wood returned to the South to see and experience the land where her ancestors lived, struggled, and thrived.