Showing results by narrator "Leon Nixon" in All Categories

Jaxon's Magical Adventure with Black Inventors and Scientists is the first audiobook in the series, Just Imagine...What If There Were No Black People in the World? This fun children's chapter audiobook tells the story of Jaxon, a 10-year-old black boy who discovers and learns about several of the African American inventors and historical figures who have made a positive impact on our everyday lives. Kids experience black history in a magical story that brings history into the present.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that law-enforcement agencies have access to more than 100 million names stored in criminal history databases. In some cities, 80 percent of the black male population is registered in these databases. Digitize and Punish explores the long history of digital computing and criminal justice, revealing how big tech, computer scientists, university researchers, and state actors have digitized carceral governance over the past 40 years - with devastating impact on poor communities of color.

For Alaskan senator Jessup, a Napa Valley break starts out as an innocent holiday-until he meets Paige. Their chemistry is explosive! And the temptation to have the Hollywood star for himself proves irresistible…but the spotlight’s trained on her every move. Will their holiday romance crash into reality with the return of a familiar face from Paige’s past?

Tip of the Spear boldly and compellingly argues that prisons are a domain of hidden warfare within US borders. With this book, Orisanmi Burton explores what he terms the Long Attica Revolt, a criminalized tradition of Black radicalism that propelled rebellions in New York prisons during the 1970s. The reaction to this revolt illuminates what Burton calls prison pacification: the coordinated tactics of violence, isolation, sexual terror, propaganda, reform, and white supremacist science and technology that state actors use to eliminate Black resistance within and beyond prison walls.

Addict, thief, pimp, pusher, player—and most notably, groundbreaking writer. Donald Goines was all of these. As a kid, Donald Goines was the product of a middle-class family. After high school, he joined the Air Force—and discovered the heroin that would rule the remainder of his life. On the streets, he turned to writing when he was straight enough to keep at it. He used the language of the streets and he wrote of its people. Goines's success was immediate and exciting. But eventually those same streets claimed him.

A lie can follow you to death. The first time my mother told me that, it didn't resonate. I'd made it a point to always tell the story that suited me in the moment. Truth or fiction. Except . . . I didn't count on the lies I told myself. Or the woman who held up the mirror so I could see them.

In the follow-up to One-Shot Harry, fearless crime photographer and occasional private eye Harry Ingram finds himself in the LAPD’s crosshairs after capturing damning evidence of police brutality. An atmospheric dive into a city on the brink that’s brimming with remarkable historical detail, Ash Dark as Night is perfect for fans of Walter Mosley and James Ellroy. Los Angeles, August 1965. Anger and pent-up frustrations boil over in the Watts neighborhood after a traffic stop of two Black motorists.

Kin is a story and a celebration of Black womanhood, of resistance, and of perseverance—while simultaneously an indictment of American history. Kin is a tree—alive in places, broken in others—that offers shelter for women seeking respite in the midst of family-making. This tree depicts family grafted together by blood, law, or choice; its stories are voiced through blues-infused poetry, one-act plays, oral history, and reportage that are combined to form an orchestra of Black history and re-memory.

Lance Montgomery, renowned relationship expert, has perfected the art of being a playa. His acclaimed workshops and bestselling books prove it. His most popular title, The Playa’s Handbook, caused a major uproar among black women and men, and shot to the top of the bestseller list.

There is an African proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” This is why we continue to remember the tales of struggle and tales of perseverance, even as we look to tales of hope. What a people choose to remember about their past, the stories they pass down, informs who they are and sets the boundaries of their identity. We remember the pain of our past to mourn, to heal, and to learn. Only in that way can we ensure the same mistakes are not repeated.

Serenity Ward is the golden girl of Kaycie. She never questioned her city's status as the last dry land on earth. The Establishment takes care of its citizens . . . or so she thought. But now she's seen the map! Why would they lie about other islands just beyond the horizon? In a city built on falsehood, figuring out who to trust is its own challenge, but Serenity pulls together a feisty group who all want the same thing—an end to the government which has hidden a world from them.

They didn't know her story before, because she hadn't told them. She didn't reveal how being so deeply tethered to a man who didn't take care of that precious connection, had wrecked her body and soul, making it nearly impossible to breathe some days. She didn't want them to know the ugly parts of her existence; had only hoped to give her girls the good in her, and on that, most days she'd failed. But so much goodness surrounded her now, by way of self-healing and a good man, Solomon.

Once satisfied with meaningless flings, the combat death of Navy SEAL Cage Mitchell's best friend prompts him to retire from the military and look for deeper meaning in life. That includes pondering whether he's ready for a wife and children. What Cage doesn't bargain for is falling for his younger brother Cameron's girlfriend, Monae Williams. Monae, a sincere young woman, is passionate about working with foster children because she grew up in the rough-and-tumble foster system. She's ready to settle down, but her boyfriend is more interested in seeking an Air Force promotion.

In Who's in My Classroom?, accomplished educator and author delivers an inspirational and practical combination of true stories from teens in Youth Communication's award-winning writing program and the most current educational research. The book links theories of adolescent development and identity formation to best practices in real-world classrooms where teachers strive to form supportive relationships with students.

Zoe comes from a line of clairvoyant, empathic women. Each one, including Zoe, is deeply connected to the world around them. Zoe's gifts are much more intense and hard to go unnoticed by those who get close to her, so she often hides what she knows to avoid being seen as unstable. She's always known who the love of her life was going to be, she just hadn't met him yet. He could live halfway across the world for all she knew. But if she saw him...or if she met him...she would know she was meeting her soul mate. The man for her. Her man to love...Rashaad.

In his more-than-four-decade tenure as the President of Hampton University—one of 107 Historically Black Colleges and Universities in America—Dr. William R. Harvey has been a champion of the cultural impact and value of HBCUs, demonstrated by the achievements of their numerous notable alumni. Their success is no coincidence. It is the result of a faultless formula that sets HBCUs apart and helps their students thrive.

One of the first studies of the organization, life, and meaning of the Nation of Islam and, by extension, all Black Nationalist movements, this classic work dispels the still-common conception that the movement functioned primarily for political purposes. By observing the daily life of its members, Essien-Udom demonstrates that the Nation of Islam served primarily as a means for poor urban Blacks to attain a national identity, a sense of ethnic consciousness, and empowerment in a society that denied them these privileges.

Comeback Season is the uplifting, unlikely, and inspirational true story of the friendships formed between Cam Perron - a white, baseball-obsessed teenager from Boston - and hundreds of former professional Negro League players, who were still awaiting the recognition and compensation that they deserved from Major League Baseball more than 50 years after their playing days were over.

After 12 years of playing basketball at the highest professional level, Brian Grant could have been forgiven for thinking that the hardest part of his life was behind him, that he'd be able to kick back and enjoy the fruits of his considerable labors. But soon after his retirement from the NBA, Grant was diagnosed with Young-Onset Parkinson's Disease, ushering in a challenge greater than any he'd faced before. In Rebound, Grant shares his remarkable life before, during, and after those NBA years with no shortage of compassion and wit.

The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes listeners on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued.