Showing results by narrator "Korey Jackson" in All Categories

On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships.

Past and present collide again in Monumental: Harriet Tubman and Newark’s Liberation Movement, created by Newark native Pia Wilson and performed by Newark native Queen Latifah. The first story dives into the riveting life of Harriet Tubman, immersing listeners in a memorable retelling of the adversity Harriet endured as a pioneer of the Underground Railroad. The second story reflects on the individuals and organizations at the forefront of the abolitionist movement in Newark.

On May 3, 1946, in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, a 17-year-old Black boy was scheduled for execution by electric chair. Willie Francis had been charged with murder; his trial had been brief; his death sentence never in doubt. When the executioners flipped the switch, Willie screamed and writhed as electricity coursed through his body. But Willie Francis did not die. Having miraculously survived, Willie was informed that the state would attempt to execute him a second time within a week.

The post-Katrina New Orleans of The City of Lost Fortunes is a place haunted by its history and by the hurricane's destruction, a place that is hoping to survive the rebuilding of its present long enough to ensure that it has a future. Street magician Jude Dubuisson is likewise burdened by his past and by the consequences of the storm, because he has a secret: the magical ability to find lost things, a gift passed down to him by the father he has never known - a father who just happens to be more than human.

Much like Lin-Manuel Miranda did in Hamilton, the New York Times best-selling author David Elliott turns a classic on its head in form and approach, updating the timeless story of Theseus and the Minotaur for a new generation. A rough, rowdy, and darkly comedic young adult retelling in verse, Bull will have listeners reevaluating one of mythology's most infamous monsters.

In the nine expansive, searching stories of A Lucky Man, fathers and sons attempt to salvage relationships with friends and family members and confront mistakes made in the past.

For 15 years August Sitwell has worked for the Barclays, a well-to-do White family who plucked him from an orphan asylum and gave him a job. The groundskeeper is part of the household’s all-Black staff, along with “Miss Mamie”, the talented cook, pretty new maid Jennie Williams, and three young kitchen apprentices - the latest orphan boys Mr. Barclay has taken in to "civilize" boys like August.

Henry Dumas' fiction is a masterful synthesis of myth and religion, culture and nature, mask and identity. From the Deep South to the simmering streets of Harlem, his characters embark on surreal and mythic quests armed only with wit, words, and wisdom. Championed by Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley, and Quincy Troupe, Dumas' books have long been out of print. All of his short fiction is collected here, for the first time, and includes several previously unpublished stories.

A girl walks home from school. She's tall for her age. She's wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She's hurrying. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: A police officer has shot and killed an unarmed 13-year-old girl. The community is thrown into upheaval, leading to unrest, a growing movement to protest the senseless taking of black lives, and the arrival of white supremacist counter-demonstrators.

In Gullah Spirituals musicologist Eric Crawford traces Gullah Geechee songs from their beginnings in West Africa to their height as songs for social change and Black identity in the 20th-century American South. While much has been done to study, preserve, and interpret Gullah culture in the Low Country and sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia, some traditions like the shouting and rowing songs have been all but forgotten.

Val James became the first African-American player in the NHL when he took to the ice with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982, and in 1987 he became the first Black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Born in central Florida, James grew up on Long Island and received his first pair of skates for his 13th birthday. At 16 James left home to play in Canada, where he was the only Black person in junior and, often, in the whole town.

Michele Grant has earned critical accolades and drawn favorable comparisons to some of urban fiction’s top authors. Sweet Little Lies is her spicy tale of a flawed woman who wants everyone to believe she’s perfect Behind Christina Brinsley’s image are three broken engagements and plenty more problems. When she meets a sexy professor who sees right through her, the facade crumbles.

All Our Names is the story of a young man who comes of age during an African revolution, drawn from the hushed halls of his university into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence becomes increasingly blurred, and the path of revolution leads to almost certain destruction, he leaves behind his country and friends for America. There, pretending to be an exchange student, he falls in love with a social worker and settles into the routines of small-town life. Yet this idyll is inescapably darkened by the secrets of his past....

The critically acclaimed journalist and best-selling author of The Rage of a Privileged Class explores one of the most essential rights in America - free speech - and reveals how it is crumbling under the combined weight of polarization, technology, money and systematized lying in this concise yet powerful and timely book.

While waiting for God to bring the ideal husband into her life, Tiffany has done everything a good Christian woman should. And just when Mr. Right begins to show an interest in her, her wayward sister, Shay, posts Tiffany’s picture and profile on a dating website without telling her. Posing as her sister, Shay immediately meets the man of her dreams. And that’s when things get crazy.

The nine tales in Give My Love to the Savages illuminate the multifaceted Black experience, exploring the thorny intersections of race, identity, and Black life through an extraordinary cast of characters. From the absurd to the starkly realistic, these stories take aim at the ironies and contradictions of the American racial experience. Chris Stuck traverses the dividing lines, and attempts to create meaning from them in unique and unusual ways.

In the wake of a bloody battle at Forward Operating Base Frontier and a scandalous presidential impeachment, Lieutenant Colonel Jan Thorsson, call sign " Harlequin," becomes a national hero and a pariah to the military that is the only family he' s ever known. In the fight for Latent equality, Oscar Britton is positioned to lead a rebellion in exile, but a powerful rival beats him to the punch: Scylla, a walking weapon who will stop at nothing to end the human-sanctioned apartheid against her kind.

He’s the Agency’s newest recruit, eager to leap through his first gate into an unfamiliar time. In Enver’s home city of Johannesburg, fair-skinned people are a rarity and have been for centuries. The people of Johannesburg were spared the ravages of the apocalypse because of the thousands of miles of mining tunnels running beneath it. The Agency’s thinking machines have set his first mission for Marrakesh, circa 1955. His handler is the tough and taciturn Shanumi Six. Their mission: prevent the apocalypse from happening again.

Spanning from the nation’s earliest years through the New Deal to the Covid pandemic, a groundbreaking work that interrogates how pivotal decisions have established and continued discriminatory practices in the United States, even as the rise of disinformation and other modern advertising techniques have plunged democracy into an ever-deepening crisis.

When Elephants Fight presents the stories of five children - Annu, Jimmy, Nadja, Farooq and Toma - from five very different and distinct conflicts - Sri Lanka, Uganda, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, and the Sudan. Along with these very personal accounts, the book also offers brief analyses of the history and geopolitical issues that are the canvas on which these conflicts are cast. When Elephants Fight is about increasing awareness.