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The Unapologetic Workbook for Black Mental Health: A Step-By-Step Guide to Build Psychological Fortitude and Reclaim Wellness
It's past time to take Black mental health seriously. It's time to intentionally cultivate resilience, build unshakable confidence, claim your truth, and step into unapologetic joy with this workbook.
There is a Black mental health crisis in our world today, and it is tied to disproportionately high rates of chronic illness, poverty, under-education, unacknowledged and untreated trauma, and structural racism. Depression, anxiety, and suicide were increasing before the global pandemic, but have since escalated even further. In order to reclaim a life worth living, you must first reclaim your mind. Whether you suffer yourself, have a loved one who needs help, or are a mental health professional working with the Black community, this workbook will be your lifeline.
This workbook--from the author of The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health--offers a step-by-step, interactive journey toward better mental health. You do not have to be at the mercy of everyday circumstances that would otherwise demean you or steal your joy. Grounded in both cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), you'll gain powerful skills to help you effectively manage stress, make self-care a priority, and find lasting emotional balance and well-being in a world still steeped in systemic inequality, discrimination, and microaggressions.
With this workbook, you'll discover:
- What "psychological fortitude" is, and why's it's so important
- How to set boundaries and say "no" when you are feeling overwhelmed
- How racism can impact your mental health--and what to do about it
- How to overcome internalized racism and explore meaningful Blackness
If you're ready to reclaim wholeness, build resilience, and thrive, this powerful workbook will be your guide.
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Lover's Island
Love and loss aren't unfamiliar territory to Nyimah Deveraux.
She's learned to live after losing the love of her life and found the courage to love again. The man she moves on with keeps her pockets lined but doesn't know how to love her correctly. Cree Baptiste is the head of the infamous Baptiste Crime Family. He has more riches and power than the average man, but he yearns for the right woman to take her place by his side. When fate aligns the paths of Nyimah and Cree, their worlds passionately collide. Nyimah is willing to risk her current relationship, revealing secrets and creating enemies in the process, while Cree is ready to challenge his family traditions to be with Nyimah. Just as quickly as fate unites the lovers, circumstances threaten to keep them apart. Will their love be strong enough to weather the obstacles thrown at them, or will skeletons of the past kill their dreams? Buckle up and take a trip to Lover's Island, where love resides, and no rules apply. -
Step by Step!: How the Lincoln School Marchers Blazed a Trail to Justice
"Imagine you had to walk 600 miles to get fair treatment at school!" Twelve-year-old Joyce Clemons introduces a fictional memory book documenting the little-known true story of nineteen Black mothers, thirty-seven children, and their two-year march to integrate an Ohio elementary school.
Following the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, Black mothers in Hillsboro, OH, attempted to enroll their children at the all-white Webster School. However, the local school board refused the call for integration. Demanding equal education, a group of Black mothers and children marched to and from Webster daily-until Black students were admitted. In Step by Step!, New York Times bestselling author Debbie Rigaud and coauthor Carlotta Penn thoughtfully capture the voice of a young activist and emphasize the power of Black mothers' leadership. Nysha Lilly's expressive illustrations, with historical primary sources interspersed throughout, immerse readers in the Lincoln School Marchers' fight. Rigaud and Penn simultaneously convey the challenges the marchers faced with the uplifting joy of a united community, encouraging readers to "keep on marching" for justice.
Step by Step! is a collaboration between Ohio nonprofit organization Ohio Humanities, Daydreamers Press, and a small group of Lincoln School alumni who resolved to share their story with the world.
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Blazing Toward Freedom
From dehumanized slaves to second class citizens and to fighters for civil rights, Septima Poinsette Clark passionately tells this riveting story of her family's lineage in America in Blazing Toward Freedom: Septima Poinsette Clark's Story from Slave to Queen Mother of the Movement.
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The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice
This groundbreaking resource moves us from theory to action with a practical plan for reparations. A surge in interest in black reparations is taking place in America on a scale not seen since the Reconstruction Era. The Black Reparations Project gathers an accomplished interdisciplinary team of scholars--members of the Reparations Planning Committee--who have considered the issues pertinent to making reparations happen. This book will be an essential resource in the national conversation going forward. The first section of The Black Reparations Project crystallizes the rationale for reparations, cataloguing centuries of racial repression, discrimination, violence, mass incarceration, and the immense black-white wealth gap. Drawing on the contributors' expertise in economics, history, law, public policy, public health, and education, the second section unfurls direct guidance for building and implementing a reparations program, including draft legislation that addresses how the program should be financed and how claimants can be identified and compensated. Rigorous and comprehensive, The Black Reparations Project will motivate, guide, and speed the final leg of the journey for justice.Sold out -
Black Swans
The stories of six daring, groundbreaking Black ballet dancers leap off the pages of this beautifully illustrated nonfiction picture book. Meet Essie Marie Dorsey, who in 1926 opened one of the first ballet schools for Black students; Arthur Mitchell, the first Black dancer with the New York City Ballet; Christian Holder, a principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet; choreographer Dwight Rhoden; and present-day ballerinas Misty Copeland and Michaela DePrince. With a leap of faith and a love of dance, these Black Swans overcame obstacles and opened doors for all the children who dream of dancing. -
Dopefiend
"Machiavelli was my tutor, Donald Goines my father figure."
--Tupac Shakur
The true Black voice of his generation, Donald Goines wrote novels that nailed the harsh realities of the urban experience deep into the psyche of today's hip hop culture, influencing major artists from Jay-Z and 50 Cent to Nas and Ghostface Killah. Dopefiend is Goines' classic descent into the junkie's harrowing nightmare... Teddy finally got the girl of his dreams. Together, Teddy and Terry filled people with admiration wherever they went. Young, gifted, and black, the future was theirs for the taking. But Teddy had a small little addiction. Then Terry had a taste. Then life took a wrong turn into the darkest, vilest back alleys. Drawing from years of his own addiction to heroin, Goines holds nothing back in this graphic, unflinching tale of lives destroyed by drugs. Each page tells it like it is--the whole truth and nothing but the truth--which keeps you coming back for more. BLACK ENTERPRISE, BEST BOOKS OF ALL TIME -
Hot Day on Abbott Avenue
It's the hottest, stickiest day of the summer. A fat-sun-in-the-sky day. An eating-ice-pops-on-the-porch day. And for Kishi and Renée, it's a best-friends-breakup day. Each girl sits on her own front porch, waiting for the other to apologize, even though they know they'll never speak to each other again, no matter how bored they get. But then the sounds of feet slapping the pavement and voices chanting double-dutch rhymes drift up the avenue, and neither one can resist going out in the street to play.
This lyrical friendship story, the first collaboration of two outstanding artists, pairs a rhythmic text with distinctive collage illustrations. Its subtle message about sharing and forgiveness will resonate with anyone who has ever experienced the ups and downs of being, and having, a best friend.
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You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P!
Alex Gino, the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Melissa, is back with another sensitive tale based on increasingly relevant social justice issues.
Jilly thinks she's figured out how life works. But when her sister, Emma, is born deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn. The world is going to treat Jilly, who is white and hearing, differently from Emma, just as it will treat them both differently from their Black cousins.
A big fantasy reader, Jilly makes a connection online with another fantasy fan, Derek, who is a Deaf, Black ASL user. She goes to Derek for help with Emma but doesn't always know the best way or time to ask for it.
As she and Derek meet in person, have some really fun conversations, and become friends, Jilly makes some mistakes . . . but comes to understand that it's up to her, not Derek to figure out how to do better next time -- especially when she wants to be there for Derek the most.
Within a world where kids like Derek and Emma aren't assured the same freedom or safety as kids like Jilly, Jilly is starting to learn all the things she doesn't know--and by doing that, she's also working to discover how to support her family and her friends.
With You Don't Know Everything, Jilly P!, award-winning author Alex Gino uses their trademark humor, heart, and humanity to show readers how being open to difference can make you a better person, and how being open to change can make you change in the best possible ways.
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Celia, a Slave
Originally published in 1991, Celia, a Slave illuminates the moral dilemmas that lie at the heart of a slaveholding society by telling the story of a young slave who was sexually exploited by her enslaver and ultimately executed for his murder. Melton A. McLaurin uses Celia's story to reveal the tensions that strained the fabric of antebellum southern society by focusing on the role of gender and the manner in which the legal system was used to justify slavery. An important addition to our understanding of the pre-Civil War era, Celia, a Slave is also an intensely compelling narrative of one woman pushed beyond the limits of her endurance by a system that denied her humanity at the most basic level. -
Girl of Mine
This companion book to Boy of Mine shows a dazzling little girl enjoying playtime in the moon's soft glow. As daddy cradles his baby girl, she is suddenly whisked away on a fantastical adventure, swinging above lush floral gardens under the golden moonlight. The sweet text, inspired by "Rock-A-Bye Baby," will whisk little ones off to peaceful slumber. With Asim's engaging and adorable rhymes and Pham's vibrant illustrations, babies and parents alike are sure to fall for Girl of Mine. -
Rattlebone
Too long unavailable, this luminous classic of small-town life in the segregated 1950s has "magic dust sprinkled over each and every page" (Veronica Chambers, New York Times Book Review). Irene Wilson knows that a "no-name invisible something" has settled over her parents' marriage and suspects her glamorous new teacher is to blame. Irene is not alone in her suspicions. In Rattlebone, a small Black town outside Kansas City in the segregated 1950s, secrets are hard to keep and growing up is a community affair. As Irene is initiated into adult passion and loss, her family story takes its place in a tightly woven tapestry of neighbors whose griefs and joys are as vivid as her own. Rattlebone is a one-of-a-kind triumph of American fiction, one that captures an entire world through the eyes of an unforgettable heroine. -
Supreme Sirens: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Music
A stunning photography book that explores the power, rebellion, and resilience held within the voices of trailblazing Black female musicians. From entertainment journalist and fashion stylist Marcellas Reynolds, the author of Supreme Models and Supreme Actresses, comes the third installment of the celebrated series, Supreme Sirens: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Music, the first-ever art book to honor the Black female singers and musicians who dominate the music industry. Supreme Sirens chronicles the most influential and successful Black performers--from legendary jazz chanteuse Billie Holiday to the queen of soul Aretha Franklin and from glamorous girl groups such as the Supremes to modern, iconic superstars including Beyoncé, Rihanna, and Janet Jackson. Through exquisite photographs, personal interviews, short biographies, and career milestones, Reynolds details how these women's music and careers have become the soundtrack of our lives. Supreme Sirens shares the power and wisdom of women who are at the forefront of entertainment; women who have overcome racial prejudices and redefined contemporary notions of Black women by breaking glass ceilings and tearing down barriers in the recording studio and on stage and screen. Includes Color ImagesSold out -
Manchild in the Promised Land
With more than two million copies in print, Manchild in the Promised Land is one of the most remarkable autobiographies of our time--the definitive account of African-American youth in Harlem of the 1940s and 1950s, and a seminal work of modern literature. Published during a literary era marked by the ascendance of black writers such as Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Alex Haley, this thinly fictionalized account of Claude Brown's childhood as a hardened, streetwise criminal trying to survive the toughest streets of Harlem has been heralded as the definitive account of everyday life for the first generation of African Americans raised in the Northern ghettos of the 1940s and 1950s. When the book was first published in 1965, it was praised for its realistic portrayal of Harlem--the children, young people, hardworking parents; the hustlers, drug dealers, prostitutes, and numbers runners; the police; the violence, sex, and humor. The book continues to resonate generations later, not only because of its fierce and dignified anger, not only because the struggles of urban youth are as deeply felt today as they were in Brown's time, but also because of its inspiring message. Now with an introduction by Nathan McCall, here is the story about the one who "made it," the boy who kept landing on his feet and grew up to become a man. -
Mae Jemison
In this book from the critically acclaimed, multimillion-copy best-selling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, discover the life of Mae Jemison, scientist, astronaut, and the first ever black woman in space. *2023 Notable Social Studies Trade Book* When Mae Jemison was a little girl, she dreamed of blasting off into space on a rocket ship. She was so excited as she watched the Apollo Moon landings, but she wondered... why none of the astronauts were women?Mae loved science and was so bright that she started college at just 16, and was training to be a doctor by the age of 20. She joined the Peace Corps, using her medical knowledge to help people in countries all around the world. Upon returning to the United States, she was accepted into NASA's astronaut program.
After hard work and training, in 1992 Mae became the first Black woman to travel into space! This inspiring book features stylish and quirky illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with historical photos and a detailed profile of the groundbreaking astronaut's life. Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream. This empowering series of books offers inspiring messages to children of all ages, in a range of formats. The board books are told in simple sentences, perfect for reading aloud to babies and toddlers. The hardcover and paperback versions present expanded stories for beginning readers. With rewritten text for older children, the treasuries each bring together a multitude of dreamers in a single volume. You can also collect a selection of the books by theme in boxed gift sets. Activity books and a journal provide even more ways to make the lives of these role models accessible to children. Inspire the next generation of outstanding people who will change the world with Little People, BIG DREAMS! -
Sold outPlaylist for the Apocalypse: Poems
In her first volume of new poems in twelve years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America's, and the world's, experiments in democracy. Whether depicting the first Jewish ghetto in sixteenth-century Venice or the contemporary efforts of Black Lives Matter, a girls' night clubbing in the shadow of World War II or the doomed nobility of Muhammad Ali's conscious objector stance, this extraordinary poet never fails to connect history's grand exploits to the triumphs and tragedies of individual lives.
Meticulously orchestrated and musical in its forms, Playlist for the Apocalypse collects a dazzling array of voices: an elevator operator simmers with resentment, an octogenarian dances an exuberant mambo, a spring cricket philosophizes with mordant humor on hip hop, critics, and Valentine's Day. Calamity turns all too personal in the book's final section, "Little Book of Woe," which charts a journey from terror to hope as Dove learns to cope with debilitating chronic illness.
At turns audaciously playful and grave, alternating poignant meditations on mortality and acerbic observations of injustice, Playlist for the Apocalypse takes us from the smallest moments of redemption to catastrophic failures of the human soul. Listen up, the poet says, speaking truth to power; what you'll hear in return is "a lifetime of song."
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