"In 1846, a young surgeon, J. Marion Sims ("The Father of Gynecology"), began several years of experimental surgeries on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha ("The Mother of Gynecology"). This series of procedures-performed without anesthesia and resulting in Anarcha's so-called "cure"-forever altered the path of women's health. Despite brutal practices and failed techniques, Sims proclaimed himself the curer of obstetric fistula, a horrific condition...

"Following the trail left by an unfinished quilt, this illuminating saga examines slavery from the cotton fields of the South to the textile mills of New England--and the humanity behind it. When we think of slavery, most of us think of the American South. We think of back-breaking fieldwork on plantations. We don't think of slavery in the North, nor do we think of the grueling labor of urban and domestic slaves. Rachel May's rich new book explores...

Draws on personal accounts from the transatlantic slave trade era to share firsthand insights into what slavery was actually like from the perspectives of former slaves, slave owners, and African slavers. "Comprising personal accounts from an intensely consequential chapter in our country's history, [this book] tells the story of American slavery from its origins in Africa to its abolition with the end of the Civil War. In this new work, Noel Rae...

"A revealing portrait of one of the most gifted and charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists and intellectuals of the twentieth century." -- "Best-known for her work A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry had an unflinching commitment to social justice which brought her under FBI surveillance when she was barely in her twenties. Hansberry associated with many activists, writers, and musicians; though she married a man, she identified as a lesbian....

"A revelatory account of the actions taken by the first president to retain his slaves in spite of Northern laws. Profiles one of the slaves, Ona Judge, describing the intense manhunt that ensued when she ran away."--NoveList. "When George and Martha Washington moved from their beloved Mount Vernon in Virginia to Philadelphia, then the seat of the nation's capital, they took nine enslaved people with them. They would serve as cooks and horsemen,...

Salon columnist D. Watkins explores the economic, political, and social realities of being black in the United States.