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Vivian Gibson
The Last Children of Mill Creek
9781948742641
Regular price $18.95 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%A bestselling memoir of a vibrant childhood spent in a thriving St. Louis African American community before “urban renewal” changed everything.
Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as “progress.” A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson’s large family―her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father―and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson’s words, “This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.”
Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, The Last Children of Mill Creek is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history―or for anyone who was once a child.
Praise for The Last Children of Mill Creek
2022 Missouri Author of the Year Winner
Missouri's “Great Reads from Great Places” Selection for the 2023 National Book Festival
“This is a story borne aloft by the sheer human joy of storytelling, of memory, of tender love for a mother and a father and for a vanished time and place. It is a book that, while steadfastly refusing the American fiction of color blindness, just as steadfastly refuses to portray Black life through the single warped lens of white-induced pain.” —TheLos Angeles Review of Books
Marshall W Major Taylor
The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World
9781953368461
Regular price $24.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
This autobiography by the sport’s first African American world champion is “a compelling story for any cycling fan” (Outside).
More than a century ago, Marshall “Major” Taylor overcame racial prejudice to become one of the most dominant cyclists in history. The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, which Taylor self-published in 1928, gives a riveting first-person account of his rise to the highest echelons of professional cycling.
Born in Indianapolis, he eventually became the first African American cycling world champion, going on to set seven world records in the sport. Here he recounts his exploits as an athlete, including his early taste of success in a grueling six-day race, his unparalleled dominance as a sprinter, and some of his most bitter defeats. But the man who achieved international fame as the “Black Cyclone” also details the extreme prejudice he faced both on and off the track. This is a story about one of the greatest athletes in American history, but also a moving testament to Taylor’s resilience and determination in the face of overt racism and seemingly impossible odds.
“Taylor paints vivid a picture of bike racing in the United States at the turn of the [twentieth] century, and highlights his mental process in dealing with racism . . . all while becoming, indeed, the fastest bike racer in the world.” —Outside
Includes an introduction by Zito Madu
More than a century ago, Marshall “Major” Taylor overcame racial prejudice to become one of the most dominant cyclists in history. The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, which Taylor self-published in 1928, gives a riveting first-person account of his rise to the highest echelons of professional cycling.
Born in Indianapolis, he eventually became the first African American cycling world champion, going on to set seven world records in the sport. Here he recounts his exploits as an athlete, including his early taste of success in a grueling six-day race, his unparalleled dominance as a sprinter, and some of his most bitter defeats. But the man who achieved international fame as the “Black Cyclone” also details the extreme prejudice he faced both on and off the track. This is a story about one of the greatest athletes in American history, but also a moving testament to Taylor’s resilience and determination in the face of overt racism and seemingly impossible odds.
“Taylor paints vivid a picture of bike racing in the United States at the turn of the [twentieth] century, and highlights his mental process in dealing with racism . . . all while becoming, indeed, the fastest bike racer in the world.” —Outside
Includes an introduction by Zito Madu
Darius Stewart
Be Not Afraid of My Body
9781953368904
Regular price $19.99 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
A poet’s “dazzlingly propulsive” memoir of growing up Black and gay in Knoxville, Tennessee (Kaveh Akbar, New York Times–bestselling author of Martyr!).
Darius Stewart spent his childhood in the Lonsdale projects of Knoxville, where he grew up navigating school, friendship, and his own family life in a context that often felt perilous. As we learn about his life in Tennessee—and eventually in Texas and Iowa, where he studies to become a poet—he details the obstacles to his most crucial desires: hiding his earliest attraction to boys in his neighborhood, predatory stalkers, doomed affairs, his struggles with alcohol addiction, and his eventual diagnosis with HIV. Through a mix of straightforward memoir, brilliantly surreal reveries, and moments of startling imagery and insight, Stewart’s explorations of love, illness, chemical dependency, desire, family, joy, shame, loneliness, and beauty coalesce into a wrenching, musical whole. Be Not Afraid of My Body stands as a compelling testament to growing up Black and gay in America, and to the drive in all of us to collect the fragments of our own experience and transform them into a story that does justice to all the multitudes we contain.
“A memorable portrait of Black gay life, from poverty and adversity to accomplishment and poetry.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A mammoth creation . . . Just unbelievably rich art right here.” —Kiese Laymon, New York Times–bestselling author of Heavy
Darius Stewart spent his childhood in the Lonsdale projects of Knoxville, where he grew up navigating school, friendship, and his own family life in a context that often felt perilous. As we learn about his life in Tennessee—and eventually in Texas and Iowa, where he studies to become a poet—he details the obstacles to his most crucial desires: hiding his earliest attraction to boys in his neighborhood, predatory stalkers, doomed affairs, his struggles with alcohol addiction, and his eventual diagnosis with HIV. Through a mix of straightforward memoir, brilliantly surreal reveries, and moments of startling imagery and insight, Stewart’s explorations of love, illness, chemical dependency, desire, family, joy, shame, loneliness, and beauty coalesce into a wrenching, musical whole. Be Not Afraid of My Body stands as a compelling testament to growing up Black and gay in America, and to the drive in all of us to collect the fragments of our own experience and transform them into a story that does justice to all the multitudes we contain.
“A memorable portrait of Black gay life, from poverty and adversity to accomplishment and poetry.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A mammoth creation . . . Just unbelievably rich art right here.” —Kiese Laymon, New York Times–bestselling author of Heavy
Terrion L Williamson
Black in the Middle
9781948742696
Regular price $20.00 Save Liquid error (snippets/product-template line 248): Computation results in '-Infinity'%
“[A] timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future.”―Jen Cox, Chicago Review of Books
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. Since the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets have renewed attention on the conditions of “Middle America,” but the national discourse continues to marginalize the Black people who live there. Black in the Middle brings the voices of Black Midwesterners front and center.
Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. Bringing together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged, this collection is a much-needed corrective to the narrative of the region.
“Ambitious and eclectic, with African American humanity on display.” ―Joseph P. Williams, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“The honesty in the essays, the emergency in the poetry, and the intensity of the photographs and paintings help to sharpen the edge of what it means to be Black in the middle of anything, which is the sum of our fears and the hope that manifests itself in our dreams.” ―Jason Vasser-Elong, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Timely and evocative . . . By calling forth the full range of the Black Midwestern experience, this bracing anthology offers crucial insights into why the region is the epicenter of current protests against police brutality and racial injustice.” ―Publishers Weekly
Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. Since the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets have renewed attention on the conditions of “Middle America,” but the national discourse continues to marginalize the Black people who live there. Black in the Middle brings the voices of Black Midwesterners front and center.
Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. Bringing together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged, this collection is a much-needed corrective to the narrative of the region.
“Ambitious and eclectic, with African American humanity on display.” ―Joseph P. Williams, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“The honesty in the essays, the emergency in the poetry, and the intensity of the photographs and paintings help to sharpen the edge of what it means to be Black in the middle of anything, which is the sum of our fears and the hope that manifests itself in our dreams.” ―Jason Vasser-Elong, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Timely and evocative . . . By calling forth the full range of the Black Midwestern experience, this bracing anthology offers crucial insights into why the region is the epicenter of current protests against police brutality and racial injustice.” ―Publishers Weekly
