Showing results by narrator "Karen Chilton"

In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. Yet, as legal star Michelle Alexander reveals, today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against convicted criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans.

Stephen L. Carter delves into his past and retrieves the inspiring story of his grandmother’s life. She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s - and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected 20 lawyers to help him clean up the city’s underworld, she was the only member of his team who was not a white male. 

This cultural biography tells the enthralling story of the high-achieving black elites who thrived in the nation's capital during Reconstruction. Daniel Murray (1851-1925), an assistant librarian at the Library of Congress, was a prominent member of this glorious class. Murray's life was reflective of those who were well-off at the time. This social circle included African American educators, ministers, lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, US senators and representatives, and other government officials.

New York City socialite and perpetual hot mess Portia Hobbs is tired of disappointing her family, friends, and - most importantly - herself. An apprenticeship with a struggling swordmaker in Scotland is a chance to use her expertise and discover what she's capable of. And it turns out that she excels at aggravating her gruff silver-fox boss, when she's not having inappropriate fantasies about his sexy Scottish burr.

Between grad school and multiple jobs, Naledi Smith doesn't have time for fairy tales . . . or the patience for constant emails claiming she's betrothed to an African prince. Sure. Right. Delete! As a former foster kid, she's learned that the only things she can depend on are herself and the scientific method, and a silly email won't convince her otherwise. Prince Thabiso is the sole heir to the throne of Thesolo, shouldering the hopes of his parents and his people. At the top of their list? His marriage. Ever dutiful, he tracks down his missing betrothed. 

We live across the thousand dunes with grit in our teeth and sand in our homes. No one will come for us. No one will save us. This is our life, diving for remnants of the old world so that we may build what the wind destroys. No one is looking down on us. Those constellations in the night sky? Those are the backs of gods we see.

Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as a hopelessly enigmatic figure despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described by current-day observers as a hypocrite, an atheist, and a simple-minded proponent of limited government.

The scene is teeming Zanzibar just before the American Civil War, when the Isle of Cloves was a center of African slave trade. To it comes Hero Athena Hollis, a Boston bluestocking filled with self-righteousness and bent on good deeds. Then she meets Rory Frost, a cynical, wicked, shrewd and good-humored trader in slaves. What is Hero to make of him (and of her feelings for him)?

For three years of the War Between the States, Marlie Lynch has helped the cause in peace: with coded letters about anti-Rebel uprisings in her Carolina woods, tisanes and poultices for Union prisoners, and silent aid to fleeing slave and Freeman alike. Her formerly enslaved mother's traditions and the name of a white father she never knew have protected her - until the vicious Confederate Home Guard claims Marlie's home for their new base of operations in the guerilla war against Southern resistors of the Rebel cause.

Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South - to spy for the Union Army. Malcolm McCall is a detective for Pinkerton's Secret Service. Subterfuge is his calling, but he's facing his deadliest mission yet - risking his life to infiltrate a Rebel enclave in Virginia.

On a crisp autumn evening in 1980, seven-year-old Grant Moreton and his five-year-old sister Paige were nearly killed in a mysterious accident in the Cascade Mountains that left them orphans.It's been 30 years since that night. Grant is now a detective with the Seattle Police Department and long estranged from his sister. But his investigation into the bloody past of a high-class prostitute has led right to Paige's door, and what awaits inside is beyond his wildest imagining.

An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.

Elijah Sutton is no fool, despite his love of a country that enslaves people like him. When he's offered land, livestock, and - most importantly - his freedom if he fights in his Patriot owner's stead, Elijah believes he'll soon have everything he ever wanted...and then he meets Kate. The Crown has promised freedom to slaves who escape their Patriot masters and join the British side, and Kate intends to take them up on it. She's eager to leave America - and the painful memories it holds for her - far behind...and then she meets Elijah.  

Sofronia Wallis knows that proper Black women don’t court trouble by upending the status quo, but it’s 1961 and the Civil Rights movement is in full swing. Sofie’s spent half her life being prim, proper, and reserved - as if that could bring her mother back - but the nonviolent protests happening across the South bring out her inner agitator. Ivan Friedman has devoted his life to boxing. His family escaped from Europe before the horrors of WWII, and Ivan decides to help fight injustice in their new country, even if it goes against all his instincts as a fighter.

Wonderfully narrated by Karen Chilton, Afrofuturism is an engaging, hip, and accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism. Author Ytasha Womack introduces listeners to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works. She writes engagingly about the innovators from the past and the wide range of subjects they explore. The audiobook’s topics range from the “alien” experience of blacks in America to the “wake up” cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. 

In Lighting the Fires of Freedom Janet Dewart Bell shines a light on women’s all-too-often overlooked achievements in the Movement. Through wide-ranging conversations with nine women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices. Lighting the Fires of Freedom offers these deeply personal and intimate accounts of extraordinary struggles for justice that resulted in profound social change, stories that remain important and relevant today.  

"Work hard, and don't look for excuses", C. Vivian Stringer's parents told her, "and you can achieve anything." But her faith and perseverance would be tested many times. A gifted athlete, she had to fight for a place on an all-white cheerleading squad in the 60s. In 1981, just as her coaching career was taking off, her 14-month-old daughter, Nina, was stricken with spinal meningitis. Yet Stringer brought a small, poor, historically black college to the national championships.

Under a Dark Summer Sky is set in Florida in 1935 in a small town struggling with the effects of the Depression and at the time of the great hurricane. The racially charged narrative swirls around Missy, with her courageous dedication to duty, who works for the Kincaid family; Henry, a long absent WWI soldier who still loves Missy, the girl he left behind; Henry's sister and Missy's friend, Selma, with her no-nonsense approach to crises; and Sheriff Dwayne Campbell, whose duty is to protect Henry but who has personal reasons for wanting Henry to suffer.

Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Kevin Baker, Thomas Bentil, Lawrence Block, Jerome Charyn, Suzanne Chazin, Terrence Cheng, Ed Dee, Joanne Dobson, Robert Hughes, Marlon James, Sandra Kitt, Rita Laken, Miles Marshall Lewis, Pat Picciarelli, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., S.J. Rozan, Steven Torres, and Joe Wallace.

Don’t Tell a Soul is best-selling author Tiffany L. Warren’s sequel to her fan-favorite novel What a Sista Should Do. Here, a trio of faithful friends face trials in their personal lives. When Pam’s husband, Troy, blows their fortune, his partner starts making moves on Pam. Meanwhile, Taylor must decide whether to forgive her ex, Luke, for the sake of their son. And newly divorced Yvonne finds reprieve from her loneliness by befriending a new church member. But only time will tell if the women can keep their faith and friendship intact.