When people and animals try to climb ladders to Heaven to escape problems with snakes, God, His secretary Bruce, and the angel Shaniqua decide that Heaven needs to be much further away.

A runaway slave makes a daring escape to freedom with the help of his faithful hunting dog, Zeus. Based on the true story of James Smith's journey from Virginia to Ohio in the mid-1800s.

Childhood recollections by black Americans from the 19th century Southern slave plantation to the 20th century urban ghetto.

A brief biography of the man who was born a slave and worked in salt mines as a youth but went on to become a national leader for the education of African-Americans and founder of Tuskegee Institute.

A series of poems on the life of Fortune, an eighteenth-century African-American slave in New England whose skeleton came to be an exhibit at Connecticut's Mattatuck Museum; includes notes and archival photos.

Retold Afro-American folktales of animals, fantasy, the supernatural, and desire for freedom, born of the sorrow of the slaves, but passed on in hope.

Addy and her mother forgo their Christmas plans to help the newly freed slaves arriving in Philadelphia during the Civil War.

Twelve-year-old Toswiah finds her life changed when her family enters the witness protection program.

This biographical and historical study by Miriam DeCosta-Willis (PhD, Johns Hopkins University and the first African American faculty member of Memphis State University) traces the evolution of a major Southern city through the lives of men and women who overcame social and economic barriers to create artistic works, found institutions, and obtain leadership positions that enabled them to shape their community. Documenting the accomplishments of Memphians...

A blind boy tells of his warm relationship with his grandmother and the gift she left for him after her death.