Showing results by narrator "Arnell Powell" in All Categories

Twin sisters Marisa and Clare Stockton were sixteen when Clare’s body was found in Virginia’s James River. No arrests were made. Fourteen years later, Marisa’s friends and dedicated career as a photographer help her to cope with the open wound of the past. But Marisa still feels the hurt—and the unsolved murder isn’t the only thing haunting her. A recent car crash has erased ten days of Marisa’s memories—a black hole leading up to the accident that’s left her disoriented.

When civil rights leader Hosea Lorenzo Williams died in 2000, US Congressman John Lewis said of him, "Hosea Williams must be looked upon as one of the founding fathers of the new America. Through his actions, he helped liberate all of us."

In 1924, in response to the pursuit of increasingly racist policies in the United States, W. E. B. Du Bois published a groundbreaking collection of essays that challenged the existing prejudices about Black people and provided a fuller accounting of Black contributions to American life. The accomplishments that Du Bois chronicles here - in art, literature, economics, religion, industry, the military, and more - are stunning, especially considering the obstacles facing Black Americans.

Nat Turner, enslaved preacher and prophet, marshaled dozens of his followers for a violent revolt that left fifty-five white people dead in Southampton County, Virginia. As the myth of the contented slave dissolved, the South panicked. Captured, tried, and convicted, Turner dictated his confessions to a local lawyer. Though some questions endure around the reliability of the narrative, as well as the place that such a complex figure should occupy in our historical consciousness, what is inarguable is that this 1831 rebellion marked an inflection point in America’s racial conflict.

After retiring from twenty-five years on the bench, former chief judge Belvin Perry Jr. reveals a rare and disturbingly vivid firsthand perspective of the most gruesome death penalty cases in which he played a key role, including the infamous Casey Marie Anthony, who was dubbed “America’s Most Hated Mom” after her shocking acquittal.

From the bestselling author of A Killer’s Wife, Victor Methos’s acclaimed Desert Plains series continues with the saga of two brilliant defense attorneys and a client whose confession may not be what it seems.

As the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination draws near, the events of that fateful day will undoubtedly be on the minds of many throughout the world. Here Dean Owen curates a fascinating collection of interviews and thought-provoking commentaries from notable men and women connected to that notorious Friday afternoon. Those who worked closely with the president, civil rights leaders, celebrities, prominent journalists, and political allies are among the nearly one hundred voices asked to share their reflections on the significance of that day and the legacy left behind by John F. Kennedy.

It's the end of August 2005, and a big hurricane is blowing in to New Orleans, Louisiana. Barry's family plans to evacuate the Ninth Ward with everyone else, but when Barry's little sister gets violently ill, they must return to their home and stick out the storm. At first, everything seems fine. But then the levees break, the water rises, Barry is swept out of his home, and everything changes. Stranded in the floodwaters with no idea where he is and only a stranded dog by his side, Barry must find the courage to survive the storm of the century.

Psychology student Olivia Eriksen’s family is notorious among true-crime buffs. Faced with a legacy of psychopathy that spans generations, Olivia has spent much of her academic life trying to answer one chilling question: Nature or nurture? Although she’s kept a safe distance from her blood relatives for years, Olivia agrees to attend a weekend reunion. After all, her fiancé is eager to meet his future in-laws, and the gathering may give her a chance to interview her elusive grandfather about the family traits.

America’s criminal justice system perpetuates profound social and racial harms. But despite growing recognition of its destructiveness, the vast machinery of the carceral state remains very much intact. How can its damage be undone? In this pathbreaking reader, three of the nation’s leading advocates for change provide us with tools to move from critique to action and from despair to hope. Dismantling Mass Incarceration surveys various approaches to confronting the carceral state, exploring a wide range of bold but practical interventions.

In this autobiographical novel, writer and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux draws from his own experiences as a Black homesteader to grapple with questions of race, love, and undaunted ambition. His alter ego is Jean Baptiste, a man who, embodying the pioneer spirit, is able to turn his Dakota homestead into a profitable success. Jean Baptiste’s love life, however, is not so easily settled.

An astonishing memoir of redemption—the moving story of a former top NBA player who miraculously rebounded from a monumental fall thanks to hard work and his deep, transformative faith. Sixteen years ago, Vin Baker was an NBA All-Star, an Olympic Gold medalist, and a multimillionaire. While he...

Explore the remarkable life and heartfelt verse of the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., the first Black senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City, one of the largest multicultural congregations in the US. As the first Black senior minister at Riverside Church in New York City, James A. Forbes Jr. shattered barriers of Black leadership in mainline Christian denominations. Through his powerful sermons, Forbes brought the rich preaching styles of the African American church to white pulpits, leaving an indelible mark on the landscape of progressive Christianity.

The past is not past. We may think something ancient history, or something that doesn’t affect our present day, but we would be wrong. Those Who Saw the Sun is a collection of oral histories told by Black people who grew up in the South during the time of Jim Crow. Jaha Nailah Avery is a lawyer, scholar, and reporter whose family has roots in North Carolina stretching back over 300 years. These interviews have been a personal passion project for years as she’s traveled across the South meeting with elders and hearing their stories.

Be afraid, be very afraid of Terrifying Tales, the sixth volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading. Eleven masters of suspense—Kelly Barnhill, Michael Buckley, Adam Gidwitz, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown, Claire Legrand, Nikki Loftin, Daniel José Older, Dav Pilkey, R.L. Stine, and Rita...

Grandma BB, the unofficial matriarch of the Jamieson clan, is getting her house in order for the perfect homegoing celebration. After all, she’s eighty-something. She summons Parke Jamieson VI, his brothers, cousins, and their families to play a part in the practice funeral program—only if they follow her instructions to the letter. Since the Jamiesons are at her house with bodyguards Chip and Dale, they might have an impromptu family game night. The evening is full of surprises, especially when an unexpected visitor shows up to steal the show.

On a September night in Montreal in 1993, Curtis Pride got his first Major League hit, prompting a long, emotional standing ovation from the crowd of 45,757 fans. Profoundly deaf since birth, Pride couldn’t hear their thunderous applause. But as the cheers grew louder and more insistent, he realized he was feeling those vibrations within his chest—an undeniable acknowledgment of an extraordinary achievement.

“Devious, delicious, and gasp-worthy.” (Kathleen Glasgow, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces) In this genre-defying page-turner from Lygia Day Peñaflor, four teens befriend their favorite novelist, only to find their deepest, darkest secrets in the pages of her next...

All-Black institutions and local community groups have been at the forefront of the freedom struggle since the beginning. Lifting the Chains is a history of the Black experience in America since the Civil War, told by one of our most distinguished historians of modern America, William H. Chafe. He argues that, despite the wishes and arguments of many whites to the contrary, the struggle for freedom has been carried out primarily by Black Americans, with only occasional assistance from whites.

Contrary to competing popular beliefs, police violence against African Americans has neither remained unchanged since the era of slavery nor is it a recent phenomenon disconnected from the past. In Bluecoated Terror, Jeffrey S. Adler draws on rich archival accounts to show how racialized police brutality is part of a larger system of state oppression with roots in the early twentieth-century South, particularly New Orleans.