The Kevin Powell Reader
Essential Writings and Conversations
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Narrated by:
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Kevin Powell
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By:
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Kevin Powell
About this listen
Kevin Powell is one of the most prolific and acclaimed American writers, thinkers, activists, and public speakers of the past three decades. His writings are important contributions to our national conversations on race, gender, class, politics, pop culture, celebrity, hip-hop, and the past, present, and future of the United States.
The Kevin Powell Reader is an electric and deeply inspiring selection from Powell’s lifework, spanning the Reagan-Bush years of AIDS and crack epidemics to our current era framed by the COVID-19 pandemic; the tragic killing of George Floyd; the #MeToo movement; and much more. In a journey that has produced fifteen books, countless cover stories, hundreds of published pieces, and definitive writings on iconic figures like Stacey Abrams, Dave Chappelle, Kerry Washington, Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Tupac Shakur, Aretha Franklin, and Kendrick Lamar, Powell is a voice for our times, and a voice that is timeless.
This collection also tracks Powell’s personal struggles and his unwavering honesty about himself and the world around him. The Kevin Powell Reader captures twenty-first-century America with hope, insight, and the urgent need to preserve freedom and justice for all people.
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The Black Friend
- On Being a Better White Person
- By: Frederick Joseph
- Narrated by: Miebaka Yohannes
- Length: 5 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Writing from the perspective of a friend, Frederick Joseph offers candid reflections on his own experiences with racism and conversations with prominent artists and activists about theirs - creating an essential listen for white people who are committed anti-racists and those newly come to the cause of racial justice.
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Not really a friend and not friendly
- By emax on 06-01-21
By: Frederick Joseph
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The Rejected Stone
- Al Sharpton and the Path to American Leadership
- By: Al Sharpton
- Narrated by: Al Sharpton
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Lord knows, Rev Al has had his personal and very public ups and downs - but he's come out bigger and better than ever. Though the host of MSNBC's PoliticsNation is as fiery and outspoken as ever about the events and issues that matter most, he's learned that the only way we can get right as a nation is by getting right from within. In this, his first book in over a decade, Rev Al will take you behind the scenes of some unexpected places - from officiating Michael Jackson's funeral, hanging out with Jay-Z and President Barack Obama at the White House, to taking charge of the Trayvon Martin case.
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The Rev We Didn't Know
- By Yankee Registered Nurse on 03-21-24
By: Al Sharpton
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Unforgetting
- A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas
- By: Roberto Lovato
- Narrated by: Roberto Lovato
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time - and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten.
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Difficult to hear but important to know.
- By M. Lindquist on 12-18-20
By: Roberto Lovato
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Patriarchy Blues
- Reflections on Manhood
- By: Frederick Joseph
- Narrated by: Preston Butler III, Novell Jordan
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In this thought-provoking collection of essays, poems, and short reflections, Frederick Joseph contemplates these questions and more as he explores issues of masculinity and patriarchy from both a personal and cultural standpoint. From fatherhood, and “manning up” to abuse and therapy, he fearlessly and thoughtfully tackles the complex realities of men’s lives today and their significance for society, lending his insights as a Black man.
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Great read!
- By BlissfullyT on 11-15-23
By: Frederick Joseph
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Will
- By: Will Smith, Mark Manson
- Narrated by: Will Smith
- Length: 16 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.
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Will sure loves Will
- By Kejeco on 11-18-21
By: Will Smith, and others
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The Stonewall Reader
- By: New York Public Library, Edmund White
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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June 28, 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots.
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A good snapshot of LGBT history
- By Randy A. Wood on 09-28-19
By: New York Public Library, and others
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Cunt (20th Anniversary Edition)
- By: Inga Muscio
- Narrated by: Inga Muscio
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fully revised anniversary edition of the classic testament to women's empowerment, Muscio explores with candidness and humor such traditional feminist issues as birth control, sexuality, jealousy between women, and prostitution with a fresh attitude for a new generation of women. Sending out a call for every woman to be the "Cuntlovin' Ruler of Her Sexual Universe", Muscio stands convention on its head by embracing the provocative and celebrating womanhood.
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Best book ever
- By Paula Daniels on 07-28-19
By: Inga Muscio
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Defining Moments in Black History
- Reading Between the Lies
- By: Dick Gregory
- Narrated by: James Shippy
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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With his trademark acerbic wit, incisive humor, and infectious paranoia, one of our foremost comedians and most politically engaged civil rights activists looks back at 100 key events from the complicated history of Black America. Defining Moments in Black History is an essential, no-holds-bar history lesson that will provoke, enlighten, and entertain.
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How we see the world matters to how we tell storie
- By Adam Shields on 10-03-18
By: Dick Gregory
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A Mind Spread Out on the Ground
- By: Alicia Elliott
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Mohawk phrase for depression can be roughly translated as a mind spread out on the ground. In this urgent, visceral work, Alicia Elliott explores how apt a description that is for the ongoing effects of the personal, intergenerational, and colonial traumas experienced by her so many Native people. Elliott's deeply personal writing details a life spent between Indigenous and White communities - a divide reflected in her own family - and engages with such wide-ranging topics as race, parenthood, love, art, mental illness, poverty, sexual assault, gentrification, and representation.
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Well written, heartfelt, revealing
- By KWK on 07-15-24
By: Alicia Elliott
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A Little Devil in America
- Notes in Praise of Black Performance
- By: Hanif Abdurraqib
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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“I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” Inspired by these few words, spoken by Josephine Baker at the 1963 March on Washington, MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow and best-selling author Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space
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Magical
- By Mary A. Ardoin on 05-11-21
By: Hanif Abdurraqib
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We Had a Little Real Estate Problem
- The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy
- By: Kliph Nesteroff
- Narrated by: Kliph Nesteroff
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It was one of the most reliable jokes in Charlie Hill’s stand-up routine: “My people are from Wisconsin. We used to be from New York. We had a little real estate problem.” In We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, acclaimed comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff focuses on one of comedy’s most significant and little-known stories: how, despite having been denied representation in the entertainment industry, Native Americans have influenced and advanced the art form.
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Amazing book!
- By Gregg Anderson on 03-22-21
By: Kliph Nesteroff
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Righteous Troublemakers
- Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement in America
- By: Al Sharpton
- Narrated by: Al Sharpton
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Righteous Troublemakers shines a light on everyday people called to do extraordinary things—like Pauli Murray, whose early work inspired Thurgood Marshall, Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus months before Rosa Parks did the same, and Gwen Carr, whose private pain in losing her son Eric Garner stoked her public activism against police brutality. Sharpton also gives his personal take on more widely known individuals, revealing overlooked details, historical connections, and a perspective informed by years of working in the social justice movement.
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Thank God for this book knowledge is power
- By JOAN REID on 02-23-22
By: Al Sharpton