In Magically Black and Other Essays Jerald Walker elegantly blends personal revelation and cultural critique to create a bracing and often humorous examination of Black American life. He thoughtfully addresses the inherent complexities of topics as eclectic as incarceration, home renovations, gentrification, the crip walk, pimping, and the rise of the MAGA movement, approaching them through various Black perspectives, including husband, father, teacher, and writer.

Waiting in the emergency room at Temple University Hospital in North Philadelphia where his eighteen-year-old nephew, Nasir, lay unconscious after being shot nine times, MK Asante began pouring his heart and soul into a series of letters to a beautiful, dying Black boy so full of life. As Nasir fought for survival, MK realized there was so much—too much—that he had kept from his nephew, starting with the truth about his father, MK’s brother, Uzi, whom Nasir had never met. MK could no longer remain silent because in many ways, his nephew was repeating the mistakes of the past.

A 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist and former Wall Street Journal writer exhaustively examines his family’s legacy of post-enslavement trauma and resilience, in this riveting memoir. I Am Nobody’s Slave tells the story of one Black family's pursuit of the American Dream through the impacts of systemic racism and racial violence. This book examines how trauma from enslavement and Jim Crow shaped their outlook on thriving in America, influenced each generation, and how they succeeded despite these challenges.

Every Where Alien is Brad Walrond’s dazzling afro-futuristic, afro-surrealist journey through New York City’s underground art movements, including the New Black Arts Movement, Black Rock Coalition, the Underground House Music-Dance community, the HIV/AIDS Black Queer Artivists, and the House Ballroom Scene. Every Where Alien catapults us to New York City mid-1990s, early-2000s to rebroadcast the black queer creative genius of marginalized communities. Walrond questions narrow conceptions of “alien” as outsider, to explore how feelings of alienation also call us toward our shared humanity.

Keeonna and Jason met as young teens. Only fourteen, Keeonna had never had a boyfriend before, dreamed of attending Spelman to become an obstetrician, and thought she was “grown.” Within a year she was pregnant and Jason was in prison, convicted of a carjacking and sentenced to twenty-two years. Overnight Keeonna had become a “mainline mama,” a parent facing the task of raising a child—while still growing up herself—with an incarcerated partner.