NCW Libraries

"Argo": Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979. "Birdman": A washed-up superhero actor attempts to revive his fading career by writing, directing, and starring in a Broadway production. "Green book": A working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American...

The Black leader discusses his political philosophy and reveals details of his life, shedding light on the ideas that enabled him to gain the allegiance of a still growing percentage of the Black population. "In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating...

"This Field Guide to White Supremacy illuminates the long and complex career of white supremacist and patriarchal violence in the United States, ranging across time and across impacted groups in order to provide a working volume for those who wish to recognize, understand, name, and oppose it. We focus here not only on the most catastrophic incidents of white supremacist domestic terrorism-like the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building...

This special issue of The New York Times Magazine challenges us to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation's foundational date, focusing the narrative of U.S. history on the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans. The issue contains essays on different aspects of contemporary American life, from mass incarceration to rush-hour traffic, that have their...

Ray Charles was born in a poor predominantly black town in central Florida. He went blind at the age of 7. With the staunch support of his determined single mother, he developed a fierce resolve. He had wit and incredible talent which would eventually enable him to overcome not only Jim Crow racism and the cruel prejudices against the blind, but also discover his own sound which revolutionized American popular music. Nonetheless, as Ray's unprecedented...