Black Loyalists is an attempt to present hard data about the lives of Nova Scotia Black Loyalists before they escaped slavery in early South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and after they settled in Nova Scotia—to bring back into our awareness the context for some very brave and enterprising men and women who survived the chaos of the American Revolution, people who found a way to pass through the heart, ironically, of a War for Liberty, to liberty and human dignity.

Val James received his first pair of skates for his 13th birthday and by 16, he left his home in New York to play in Canada, where he was the only black person on his junior team and, often, in the whole town. While popular for his tough play and winning personality, the teenager faced racist taunts at opposing arenas. The prejudice he encountered continued at all levels of the game. He became the first African American NHLer when he took to the ice with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982, and in 1987 he was the first black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs. In his two NHL stints, James defined himself as a team player known for his pugilistic skills.

As featured in a Fox News Black History Month documentary, on NHL.com, NPR’s Morning Edition, ESPN’s Olbermann, and in Newsday, the L.A. Times, and The New York Times, Black Ice is the untold story of a trail-blazing athlete who endured and overcame discrimination to realize his dreams and become an inspiration for future generations. This edition includes a new afterword that explores James’s legacy.

From the award-winning entrepreneur, culture leader, and creator of the BLACK GIRLS ROCK! movement comes an inspiring and beautifully designed book that pays tribute to the achievements and contributions of black women around the world. Fueled by the insights of women of diverse backgrounds, including Michelle Obama, Angela Davis, Shonda Rhimes, Misty Copeland Yara Shahidi, and Mary J. Blige, this book is a celebration of black women's voices and experiences that will become a collector's items for generations to come. Maxine Waters shares the personal fulfillment of service. Moguls Cathy Hughes, Suzanne Shank, and Serena Williams recount stories of steadfastness, determination, diligence, dedication and the will to win. Erykah Badu, Toshi Reagon, Mickalane Thomas, Solange Knowles-Ferguson, and Rihanna offer insights on creativity and how they use it to stay in tune with their magic. Pioneering writers Rebecca Walker, Melissa Harris-Perry, and Joan Morgan speak on modern-day black feminist thought. Lupita Nyong'o, Susan Taylor, and Bethann Hardison affirm the true essence of holistic beauty. And Iyanla Vanzant reinforces Black Girl Magic in her powerful pledge. Through these and dozens of other unforgettable testimonies, Black Girls Rock! is an ode to black girl ambition, self-love, empowerment, and healing. Pairing inspirational essays and affirmations with lush, newly commissioned and classic photography, Black Girls Rock!: Owning Our Magic and Rocking Our Truth is not only a one-of-a-kind celebration of the diversity, fortitude, and spirituality of black women but also a foundational text that will energize and empower every reader.

A timeless and inspiring autobiographical account of the great religious and historical vision of an American Indian healer, Black Elk Speaks has become a revered spiritual classic for all peoples everywhere. Black Elk (1863-1950) was a Lakota Sioux Indian with a privileged insight into the great changes taking place among his people in their native land. His vision occurred during the period just before the Little Big Horn massacre. His words were transcribed at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1930 by John G. Neihardt, a writer and critic with an intense and compassionate interest in American Indian culture and religion. Black Elk specifically designated Neihardt to record his words. These words convey Native American history from the 'inside.' They are as well a religious testament to the enduring spirit of America's native people.

A shocking, first-person account of a Mountie who went from small-town Newfoundland to undercover drug work in Toronto to guarding prime ministers and presidents. All along, the racism he encountered from the public was easier to handle than the racism of fellow police officers - and the RCMP hierarchy.

In Black and Blue, author and radio personality Stanley Péan guides us through a history of jazz, stopping at a number of high points along the way. He takes us behind the scenes with anecdotes that tell much about the misunderstandings that have surrounded the music. How could Jean-Paul Sartre have mixed up Afro-Canadian songwriter Shelton Brooks with the Jewish-American belter Sophie Tucker? What is the real story behind the searing classic "Strange Fruit" made immortal by Billie Holiday, who at first balked at performing it? And since this is jazz, there is no shortage of sad ends: Bix Beiderbecke, Chet Baker, Lee Morgan, to name a few. Péan also shows how musicians like Miles Davis worked with the emerging voices of hip- hop to widen jazz's audience, as well as how the movies, Hollywood and European cinema alike, tried to use jazz, often whitening it in the process. Like jazz itself, Péan's essays are spontaneous, thoughtful, and refined.

In 1976, Ben Martini was diagnosed with schizophrenia. A decade later, his brother Olivier was told he had the same disease. For the past thirty years the Martini family has struggled to comprehend and cope with a devastating illness, frustrated by a health care system lacking in resources and empathy, the imperfect science of medication, and the strain of mental illness on familial relationships. Throughout it all, Olivier, an accomplished visual artist, drew. His sketches, comic strips, and portraits document his experience with, and capture the essence of, this all too frequently misunderstood disease. In Bitter Medicine, Olivier’s poignant graphic narrative runs alongside and communicates with a written account of the past three decades by his younger brother, award-winning author and playwright Clem Martini. The result is a layered family memoir that faces head-on the stigma attached to mental illness. Shot through with wry humour and unapologetic in its politics, Bitter Medicine is the story of the Martini family, a polemical and poetic portrait of illness, and a vital and timely call for action.

A revelatory look at the tumultuous life of a jazz legend and American cultural icon In the first biography of Billie Holiday in more than two decades, Paul Alexander - author of heralded lives of Sylvia Plath and J. D. Salinger - gives us an unconventional portrait of arguably America's most eminent jazz singer. He shrewdly focuses on the last year of her life - with relevant flashbacks to provide context - to evoke and examine the persistent magnificence of Holiday's artistry when it was supposed to have declined, in the wake of her drug abuse, relationships with violent men, and run-ins with the law. During her lifetime and after her death, Billie Holiday was often depicted as a down-on-her-luck junkie severely lacking in self-esteem. Relying on interviews with people who knew her, and new material unearthed in private collections and institutional archives, Bitter Crop - a reference to the last two words of Strange Fruit , her moving song about lynching - limns Holiday as a powerful, ambitious woman who overcame her flaws to triumph as a vital figure of American popular music.

Wilbur and Orville Wright are two of the greatest innovators in history, and together they solved the centuries-old riddle of powered, heavier-than-air flight. Glenn Hammond Curtiss was the most talented machinist of his day; he first became the fastest man alive when he perfected the motorcycle, then turned his eyes toward the skies to become the fastest man aloft. But between the Wrights and Curtiss bloomed a poisonous rivalry and a patent war so powerful that it shaped aviation in its early years and drove one of the three men to his grave. Birdmen is at once a thrilling ride through flight's wild early years and a surprising look at the battle that defined an era of American innovation. Lawrence Goldstone is the author or co-author of fourteen books of fiction and nonfiction, most recently LEFTY: An American Odyssey. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, The Toronto Star, Salon, and Slate, among others. He lives on Long Island with his wife and daughter.