In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man, has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey - first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration...

The life of the eighteenth-century African prince who, after being captured by slave traders, was brought to Massachusetts where he was a slave until he was able to buy his freedom at the age of sixty.

The author relates his experiences growing up in Harlem, the home of Sugar Ray Robinson and Langston Hughes, in the 1940s and 1950s.

A biography of the Black explorer who discovered the North Pole.

Brief biographies of ten African Americans including C.G. Woodson, Dorothy Height, Thurgood Marshall, Charlemae Rollins, and Alex Haley. With a skit about each to be acted out.

Biographical portraits of ten African-American women including Leontyne Price, Toni Morrison, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Describes the early lives and notable achievements of five black scientists, Susan McKinney Steward, George Washington Carver, Ernest Everett Just, Percy Lavon Julian, and Shirley Ann Jackson.

Describes the life and accomplishments of the son of a former slave whose unusual bulldogging style made him a rodeo star.

Stories of fourteen blacks who determined to escape from the ghetto and succeeded.

Biographies of twenty black men and women who made notable contributions in the fields of science, politics, sports, and the arts from the 1500s to the present.