Tonya Bolden

The fascinating biography of one of America's most influential African American voices from the award–winning author of Speak Up, Speak Out!
Teacher. Self-emancipator. Orator. Author. Man. Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) is one of the most important African American figures in US history, best known, perhaps, for his own emancipation. But there is much more to Douglass's story than his time spent in slavery and his famous autobiography....

In a searing historical novel, Tonya Bolden illuminates post-Reconstruction America in an intimate portrait of a determined young woman who dares to seize the opportunity of a lifetime.
As a young black woman in 1880s Savannah, Essie's dreams are very much at odds with her reality. Ashamed of her beginnings, but unwilling to accept the path currently available to her, Essie is trapped between the life she has and the life she wants.
Until...

"As a mail carrier, Victor Hugo Green traveled across New Jersey every day. But with Jim Crow laws enforcing segregation since the late 1800s, traveling as a Black person in the US could be stressful, even dangerous. So in the 1930s, Victor created a guide--The Negro Motorist Green-Book--compiling information on where to go and what places to avoid so that Black travelers could have a safe and pleasant time. While the Green Book started out small,...

"...This book offers readers a unique look at the events that led to the Emancipation Proclamation. Filled with little-known facts and fascinating details, it includes excerpts from historical sources, archival images, and new research that debunks myths about the Emancipation Proclamation and its causes."--Amazon.com.

Dovey Johnson Roundtree was most famous for her successful defense of an indigent Black man accused of the murder of Mary Pinchot Meyer, a prominent white Washington, DC, socialite, in 1965. Despite her triumph in this high-profile case, Roundtree continued to represent the poor and the underserved. She was the first lawyer to bring a bus-desegregation case before the Interstate Commerce Commission, clinching the ruling that enabled Robert F. Kennedy...

The first African men, women, and children in colonial America did not arrive with dreams of freedom or hopes of a new, better life. They arrived after a torturous 90-day journey called the Middle Passage. And they arrived as slaves. Since that time, African-Americans have suffered, triumphed, despaired, and dreamed. Through U.S. history, nowhere are the hopes and fears of the black experience expressed more convincingly than on the faces of black...

When Mariah and her young brother Zeke are suddenly freed from slavery, they set out on Sherman's long march through Georgia during the Civil War. Mariah wants to believe that the brutalities of slavery are behind them forever and that freedom lies ahead. When she meets Caleb, an enigmatic young black man also on the march, Mariah soon finds herself dreaming not only of a new life, but of true love as well. But even hope comes at a cost, and as the...

"Award-winning author Tonya Bolden explores the black women who have changed the world of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in America. Including groundbreaking computer scientists, doctors, inventors, physicists, pharmacists, mathematicians, aviators, and many more, this book celebrates over 50 women who have shattered the glass ceiling, defied racial discrimination, and pioneered in their fields. In these profiles, young readers...

Savannah Riddle feels suffocated by her life as the daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington, D.C., until she meets a working-class girl named Nell who introduces her to the suffragette and socialist movements and to her politically active cousin Lloyd. 1919. As a daughter of an upper class African American family in Washington D.C., Savannah is lucky, but feels suffocated by the structure of society. Lloyd, a young West Indian...

From award-winning author Tonya Bolden comes a biography of the first Black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and the first Black woman to run for president with a major political party: Shirley Chisholm. Before there was Barack Obama, before there was Kamala Harris, there was Fighting Shirley Chisholm. A daughter of Barbadian immigrants, Chisholm developed her political chops in Brooklyn in the 1950s and went on to become the first...