In these brilliant poems, Rita Dove treats us to a panoply of human endeavor, shot through with the electrifying jazz of her lyric elegance. From the opening sequence, "Cameos," to the civil rights struggle of the final sequence, she explores the intersection of individual fate and history.

She was born the 20th child in a family that had lived in the Mississippi Delta for generations, first as enslaved people and then as sharecroppers. She left school at 12 to pick cotton, as those before her had done, in a world in which white supremacy was an unassailable citadel. She was subjected without her consent to an operation that deprived her of children. And she was denied the most basic of all rights in America--the right to cast a ballot--in...

"Until I Am Free explores the political ideas and philosophies of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer"-- Provided by publisher.

"Describes the unlikely friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Pauli Murray, a granddaughter of a mixed race slave and a lesbian, who became a lawyer and civil rights pioneer, and the important work they each did, taking stands for justice and freedom."--NoveList.

"Largely defined by her trailblazing play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry died in 1965 at age thirty-four. A prolific and probing artist, she was also one of the most radical, courageous, and prescient artist-intellectuals of the twentieth century--and one of the least understood. Looking for Lorraine gives us the ultimate gift of imagining Hansberry as a complete person--and of seeing her prodigious intellect, emotions, activism, and varied...

"Who was Pauli Murray? Children will love learning about this activist who fought for different rights and became the first African American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest."-- Publisher marketing.

In January of 1950, Mary Church Terrell, an eighty-six-year-old charter member of the NAACP, headed into Thompson's Restaurant, just a few blocks from the White House, and requested to be served. She and her companions were informed by the manager that they could not eat in his establishment, because they were "colored." Terrell, a former suffragette and one of the country's first college-educated African-American women, took the matter to court....

A simple biography of the black educator who was instrumental in creating opportunities for blacks in education and government.

A biography of a determined woman, who was born in Tennessee, educated in Ohio, and lived in Washington, D.C., where she worked to gain equal rights for herself and other African Americans.

"A maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lizzie McDuffie, whose husband is FDR’s personal valet, becomes the President’s eyes and ears into the Black community, advocating for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President. A novel inspired by the life of an unsung heroine, and real-life crusader, Lizzie McDuffie, who, as a maid in FDR's White House, spearheaded the Civil...