Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. is the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. A widely published writer, he is the author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (University of California Press, 2003). It was named outstanding book of the year by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. He also has recently completed In Walked Bud: Earl “Bud” Powell and the Modern Jazz Challenge, which is forthcoming from the University of California Press. His next book, Who Hears Here?: Essays on Black Music History and Society, a mid-career collection of his essays is also forthcoming. He was recipient of the Lowens Award from the Society for American Music for best article on an Am

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Alan Young

Alan Young gained a PhD from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1974, on the political role of the Comyns in Medieval Scotland and continues to be fascinated by the family. He has written biographies of William Wallace and Robert Bruce and is a freelance writer and lecturer.
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William C. Kashatus

William C. Kashatus is an historian, educator and author. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Earlham College, he earned an MA in history at Brown University and a PhD in history education at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently teaches history at Luzerne County Community College in northeastern Pennsylvania.
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Nelson George

Nelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture.

Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.

He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1
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Alice Randall

Alice Randall (born Detroit, Michigan) is an American author and songwriter. Randall grew up in Washington, D.C.. She attended Harvard University, where she earned an honors degree in English and American literature, before moving to Nashville in 1983 to become a country songwriter. She currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee and is married to attorney David Ewing.

Randall is the first African American woman to write a number one country hit. Over 20 of her songs have been recorded, including several top ten and top forty records; her songs have been performed by Trisha Yearwood and Mark O'Connor.

Randall is also a novelist, whose first novel The Wind Done Gone is a reinterpretation and parody of Gone with the Wind. The Wind Done Gone is esse
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Toni Cade Bambara

Toni Cade Bambara, born Miltona Mirkin Cade (March 25, 1939 – December 9, 1995) was an African-American author, documentary film-maker, social activist and college professor.

Toni Cade Bambara was born in New York City to parents Walter and Helen (Henderson) Cade. She grew up in Harlem, Bedford Stuyvesant (Brooklyn), Queens and New Jersey. In 1970 she changed her name to include the name of a West African ethnic group, Bambara.

Bambara graduated from Queens College with a B.A. in Theater Arts/English Literature in 1959, then studied mime at the Ecole de Mime Etienne Decroux in Paris, France. She also became interested in dance before completing her master's degree in American studies at City College, New York (from 1962), while serving as pro
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Jeff Chang

Jeff Chang is a writer, host, and a cultural organizer known for his work in culture, politics, the arts, and music.

His cultural biography of Bruce Lee called Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America (Mariner) will be published on September 23, 2025. He is the host of the Signal Award-winning podcast on artists and ideas, Edge of Reason, produced by Atlantic: Rethink and Hauser & Wirth, and of Notes From the Edge, produced by KALW Public Media.

His first book, Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, garnered many honors, including the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award. Slate named it one of the best nonfiction books of the past 25 years. Powell’s’ Books chose it as one of their
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Richard Rothstein

Richard Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a Fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He lives in California, where he is a Fellow of the Haas Institute at the University of California–Berkeley.
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Dempsey J. Travis

Dempsey J. Travis was an entrepreneur, historian and self-made multi-millionaire. He was the president of Travis Realty Company®, which has been listed among the Largest 100 Black Business in America by Black Enterprise Magazine. Mr. Travis was also listed for seven years in Ebony Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans and as Black Businessman of the Year by Dollar and Sense Magazine.
Mr. Travis authored 25 best selling books including An Autobiography of Black Chicago, An Autobiography of Black Politics, Real Estate is the Gold in Your Future, and, Harold: The People’s Mayor, to name a few titles. His last book before his death was "Obama's Race to the White House." An autobiography was in process at the time of his de
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Gayle Wald

Gayle Wald is Professor of English and American Studies at George Washington University. She is the author of Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century Literature and Culture, also published by Duke University Press. Chester Higgins is a photographer and author based in Brooklyn, New York. The author of several books, Higgins has presented his photography at dozens of solo exhibitions throughout the world.
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James Brown

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

James Joseph Brown, commonly referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", was a two-time Grammy Award-winning and mutiple Grammy Award-nominated American entertainer recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music. He was renowned for his shouting vocals, feverish dancing and unique rhythmic style.

As a prolific singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, Brown was a pivotal force in the evolution of gospel and rhythm and blues into soul and funk. He left his mark on numerous other musical genres, including rock, jazz, disco, dance and electronic music, reggae and hip hop. B
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David Walker

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There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

David Walker was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well (partus sequitur ventrem). In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge (later named Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Jurisdiction of Massachusetts), he published An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and self-help in the fight against the oppressive and unjust slavery. Walker exerted a radicalizing influence on the abolitionist movements of his day and inspired future black leaders and activists.
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Charles White

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
This si Charles^^^^^^White.
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Issa Rae

With her own unique flare and infectious sense of humor, Issa Rae’s content has garnered over 20 million views and close to 160,000 subscribers on YouTube. In addition to making the Forbes 30 Under 30 list twice and winning the 2012 Shorty Award for Best Web Show for her hit series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” Issa Rae has worked on web content for Pharrell Williams, Tracey Edmonds and numerous others. She developed a TV series with Shonda Rhimes for ABC and is currently developing a half-hour comedy for HBO with Larry Wilmore. Rae is also slated to release a book of essays with Simon & Schuster in 2015.

Issa Rae is signed with UTA and 3 Arts Entertainment.
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Sly Stone

Sylvester Stewart, better known by his stage name Sly Stone, was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the frontman of Sly and the Family Stone, playing a critical role in the development of funk with his pioneering fusion of soul, rock, psychedelia, and gospel in the 1960s and 1970s. AllMusic stated that " James Brown may have invented funk, but Sly Stone perfected it," and credited him with "creating a series of euphoric yet politically charged records that proved a massive influence on artists of all musical and cultural backgrounds". Crawdaddy! has credited him as the founder of the "progressive soul" movement.
Born in Denton, Texas, and raised in the Bay Area city of Vallejo in Northern California, Stone mastere
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Emmanuel Acho

Emmanuel Chinedum Acho is a Nigerian-American former linebacker who played in the National Football League and is currently working as an analyst for Fox Sports 1. He played college football at Texas before being drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the sixth round of the 2012 NFL Draft.
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Coleman Hughes

"My name is Coleman Hughes. I’m a writer, podcast host, and musician.

I’ve written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Quillette, the Spectator, and the City Journal. Currently, I’m a contributing writer at the Free Press."
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Nelson George

Nelson George is an author, filmmaker, television producer, and critic with a long career in analyzing and presenting the diverse elements of African-American culture.

Queen Latifah won the Golden Globe for playing the lead in his directorial debut, the HBO movie 'Life Support'. The critically acclaimed drama looked at the effects of HIV on a troubled black family in his native Brooklyn, New York. He recently co-edited, with Alan Leeds, 'The James Brown Reader (Plume)', a collection of previously published articles about the Godfather of Soul that date as far back the late '50s. Plume published the book in May '08.

He is an executive producer on two returning cable shows: the third season of BET's American Gangster and the fifth airing of VH1
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Henry Highland Garnet

Henry Highland Garnet was an African-American abolitionist, minister, educator and orator.
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Robert Palmer

Robert Franklin Palmer Jr. was a 20th century American writer, musicologist, clarinetist, saxophonist, and blues producer. Robert Palmer is best known for books he authored such as Deep Blues, his music journalism articles for The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine, his work producing blues recordings and the soundtrack to the film Deep Blues, and his clarinet work in the 1960s band The Insect Trust.

-Wikipedia

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Andrew K. Diemer

ANDREW DIEMER is an associate professor at Towson University. He earned his PhD from Temple University and is author of The Politics of Black Citizenship: Free African Americans in the Mid-Atlantic Borderland, 1817-1863, published by the University of Georgia Press in 2016. He lives in Philadelphia.
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Robin D.G. Kelley

Robin Davis Gibran Kelley is an American historian and academic, who is the Gary B. Nash Professor of American History at UCLA.
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Greg Tate

Greg Tate is a music and popular culture critic and journalist whose work has appeared in many publications, including the Village Voice, Vibe, Spin, The Wire, and Downbeat. He is the author of Flyboy 2: The Greg Tate Reader, Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America, and Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, and the editor of Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. Tate, via guitar and baton, also leads the Conducted Improvisation ensemble Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber who tour internationally.
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Dempsey J. Travis

Dempsey J. Travis was an entrepreneur, historian and self-made multi-millionaire. He was the president of Travis Realty Company®, which has been listed among the Largest 100 Black Business in America by Black Enterprise Magazine. Mr. Travis was also listed for seven years in Ebony Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential Black Americans and as Black Businessman of the Year by Dollar and Sense Magazine.
Mr. Travis authored 25 best selling books including An Autobiography of Black Chicago, An Autobiography of Black Politics, Real Estate is the Gold in Your Future, and, Harold: The People’s Mayor, to name a few titles. His last book before his death was "Obama's Race to the White House." An autobiography was in process at the time of his de
Buy books on Amazon
James Brown

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

James Joseph Brown, commonly referred to as "The Godfather of Soul" and "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business", was a two-time Grammy Award-winning and mutiple Grammy Award-nominated American entertainer recognized as one of the most influential figures in 20th century popular music. He was renowned for his shouting vocals, feverish dancing and unique rhythmic style.

As a prolific singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, Brown was a pivotal force in the evolution of gospel and rhythm and blues into soul and funk. He left his mark on numerous other musical genres, including rock, jazz, disco, dance and electronic music, reggae and hip hop. B
Buy books on Amazon
Charles White

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
This si Charles^^^^^^White.
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Lawrence W. Levine

Lawrence William Levine was a celebrated American historian. He was born in Manhattan and died in Berkeley, California.

A model of the engaged scholar throughout his life, Levine lived both his scholarship and his politics. From the very outset, he immersed himself in the political life of Berkeley – in, for example, a sleep-in in the rotunda of the state capitol in Sacramento to press for fair housing legislation, and the sit-ins in Berkeley organized by CORE to force stores to hire black people.

He participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery, expressing his solidarity with the civil rights movement. During the Free Speech upheaval at Berkeley, he came to the defense of students protesting a ban on political activity on campus in sup
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Timuel D. Black Jr.

Timuel Dixon Black Jr. was an American educator, civil rights activist, historian and author. A native of Alabama, Black was raised in Chicago, Illinois and studied the city's African American history.
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