Showing results by narrator "Leon Nixon" in All Categories

In this “must-read for anyone concerned with race, sports, and politics in America” (William C. Rhoden, New York Times bestselling author), the inspirational and largely unknown true story of the eighteen African American athletes who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, defying the...

After 12 years of playing basketball at the highest professional level, Brian Grant could have been forgiven for thinking that the hardest part of his life was behind him, that he'd be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of his considerable labors. But soon after his retirement from the NBA, Grant was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease, ushering in a challenge greater than any he'd faced before. In Rebound, Grant shares his remarkable life before, during, and after those NBA years with no shortage of compassion and wit.

Cole has heard it all before - token, bougie, oreo, Blackish - the things we call the kids like him. Black kids who grow up in white spaces, living at an intersection of race and class that many doubt exists. He needed to get far away from the preppy site of his upbringing before he could make sense of it all. Through a series of personal anecdotes and interviews with his peers, Cole transports us to his adolescence and explores what it's like to be young and in search of identity.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that law-enforcement agencies have access to more than 100 million names stored in criminal history databases. In some cities, 80 percent of the black male population is registered in these databases. Digitize and Punish explores the long history of digital computing and criminal justice, revealing how big tech, computer scientists, university researchers, and state actors have digitized carceral governance over the past 40 years - with devastating impact on poor communities of color.   

Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery.

Changes in the American religious landscape enabled the rise of mass incarceration. Religious ideas and practices also offer a key for ending mass incarceration. These are the bold claims advanced by Break Every Yoke. Once, in an era not too long past, Americans, both incarcerated and free, spoke a language of social liberation animated by religion. In the era of mass incarceration, we have largely forgotten how to dream - and organize - this way. To end mass incarceration, we must reclaim this lost tradition.

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know. Beginning with the simultaneous rise of civil rights and computer revolutions in the 1960s, McIlwain, for the first time, chronicles the long relationship between African Americans, computing technology, and the Internet.

In 1971, Eddie Conway, lieutenant of security for the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party, was convicted of murdering a police officer and sentenced to life plus 30 years. Paul Coates was a community worker at the time and didn’t know Eddie well, and the little he knew, he didn’t much like. But Paul was dead certain that Eddie’s charges were bogus. He vowed never to leave Eddie - and in so doing, changed the course of both their lives. For over 43 years, as he raised a family and started a business, Paul visited Eddie in prison, often taking his kids with him.

Nowhere else in the world have both Islam and Christianity been more instrumental in shaping the history of a people and their way of life than in Africa. African Muslims and Christians have a lot in common, including kinship ties, shared languages and citizenship. Yet, despite the centuries of deep historical links and harmonious existence between the two religions, new challenges threaten this harmony. Conflicts involving Christians and Muslims in places like Sudan, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast are common.

Two old friends, one cabin, and zero chances of their lives not being changed. Hailey Owens's life path was planned perfectly. From her college choice down to the flowers she'd have on her wedding day and what she'd name her children. Kane Travis has never been one to force anything. He's preferred going with the flow to avoid disappointment.

Herbert Carnegie was the complete hockey package in the 1940s and 1950s. Though his contributions to society both in sport and education have been referenced and profiled in books, documentaries, and thousands of articles, this is Carnegie's own account of striving to break the glass ceiling, starting with his career as a professional hockey player on all-white teams. In 1978, noted hockey journalist Stan Fischler wrote a powerful headline about Carnegie: "Born Too Soon."

An African American writer's concise, heartfelt take on the state of his nation, exploring the war between the values he has always held and the reality with which he is confronted in 21st-century America.

Sonya Lee and Eric Morris have been homicide detectives for more than two years and have worked hundreds of cases together. They have impeccable conviction rates and numerous accommodations. When a psychopath terrorizes the streets of Cleveland, decapitating bodies along the way, the case is then placed into the hands of two detectives who have only been given a limited amount of time to solve it and hold someone accountable. That is, until one of their own is murdered and the daughter whose parents are politically connected are abducted.

Menace and Speedy are two local dope slingers with much in common, but two things in particular. They're both young and hungry. Business is booming, and while most people in their position would be satisfied, Menace and Speedy aren't "most people". They want to be among the drug game elite, and the only way to do that is get hooked up with a "connect". A major supplier who can provide enough product to help the duo graduate from "dealers" to "kingpins". One day, the pair finally acquire the long sought-after connect.

The American boxing champ and vocal civil rights activist Muhammad Ali is the 27th hero in the New York Times bestselling picture book biography series for ages 5 to 8, adapted for audio. Muhammad Ali was the leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century and a charismatic, beloved public figure...

“Powerful memoir. . .Ford’s thought-provoking narrative tells the story of African-American pride and perseverance.” –Publisher’s Weekly (Starred) “A masterful storyteller, Ford interweaves his personal story with the backdrop of the social movements unfolding at that time, providing...

Centering Black voices and the narratives of enslaved people, Breaking the Chains offers a thoroughly researched account of the ways people in bondage were themselves a driving force behind their own emancipation.

Jazz legend Cootie Williams left home to start his career as a professional musician at the age of fifteen. In 1940, after eleven years as one of the major soloists with the Duke Ellington orchestra, Williams was lured away to the band of Benny Goodman, one of the most popular bands in the country. At the time, it was a controversial move―it was still taboo for African Americans to share the bandstand with white people.

I never expected to find a mate, much less five. What does a girl even do with five men? Silly question . . . you enjoy them!! Unfortunately, my untimely death had a detrimental impact on my love life. Don't worry, dying didn’t stick. I'm alive and kicking. Alas, my death came with complications—namely, my father, who happens to be a prince of Hell. In return for saving me, he now wants to use me for his own nefarious purposes. Shocking, but I don't trust him as far as I can toss a snowball in Hell. Worse, my mates are treating me like I'm as fragile as cupid wings.

The savage in me could never allow a man to rule my world. I was the ruler, the queen, the one who people feared with just the whisper of my name. I controlled the tempo when it came to the opposite sex, and that included the good d**k CEO that I loathed entirely. He stepped foot inside my queendom and tried to be the king by my side. I prided myself on being the boss—the one in control. However, this one man came into my world and stripped me of my armor.