David Sadzin

August Wilson (1945—2005) was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who had a particular talent for capturing the authentic everyday voice of Black Americans. As a child, he read off soup cans and cereal boxes, and when his mother brought him to the library, his whole world opened up. After facing intense prejudice at school from both students and some teachers, August dropped out. However, he continued reading and educating himself independently....

Jason Reynolds conjures ten tales (one per block) about what happens after the dismissal bell rings, and weaves them into one funny, poignant look at the detours we face on the walk home, and in life.

"Take a drive through the Mississippi Delta today and you'll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and events from the civil rights movement. Perhaps the most chilling are those devoted to the murder of Emmett Till, a tragedy of hate and injustice that became a beacon in the fight for racial equality. The ways this event is remembered have been fraught from the beginning, revealing currents of controversy, patronage, and racism lurking...

What is it like to be an Enneagram Three? Pastor Sean Palmer reflects on this question in a spirit of honest self-assessment. He draws wisdom from the deep wells of both counseling and spirituality using illustrations from Scripture and life. Each of the forty daily readings concludes with an opportunity for further engagement such as a journaling prompt, a written prayer, or a spiritual practice. Any of us can find aspects of ourselves in any of...

The powers-that-be in 1920s auto racing, namely the American Automobile Association's Contest Board, barred everyone who wasn't a white male from the sport. But Dewey Gatson, a black man who went by the name Rajo Jack, drove into the center of "outlaw" auto racing in California, refusing to let the pervasive racism of his day stop him from competing against entire fields of white drivers. In The Brown Bullet, journalist Bill Poehler uncovers the life...

A groundbreaking history that puts early and medieval West Africa in a global context Pick up almost any book on early and medieval world history and empire, and where do you find West Africa? On the periphery. This pioneering book, the first on this period of the region's history in a generation, tells a different story. Interweaving political and social history and drawing on a rich array of sources, including Arabic manuscripts, oral histories,...

How would you describe your walk with God? Fresh and passionate? Vibrant and full of life? Stagnant? Nonexistent? No matter where you are on your walk, that's exactly where God promises to meet you-even if it's messy. Sharing his own story of spiritual drifting, popular online pastor Rashawn Copeland encourages you to accept yourself as a glorious work in progress, a beloved child in whom God delights, a person on the brink of revival. Anchoring...

The first full biography of the star Negro Leaguer and Hall of Famer James "Cool Papa" Bell (1903—1991) was a legend in black baseball, a lightning fast switch hitter elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Bell's speed was extraordinary; as Satchel Paige famously quipped, he was so fast he could a light switch and be in bed before the room got dark. In The Bona Fide Legend of Cool Papa Bell, experienced baseball writer and historian...

"The "silent majority" - a phrase coined by Richard Nixon in 1969 in response to Vietnam War protests and later used by Donald Trump as a campaign slogan - refers to the supposed wedge that exists between protestors in the street and the voters at home. The Loud Minority upends this view by demonstrating that voters are in fact directly informed and influenced by protest activism. Consequently, as protests grow in America, every facet of the electoral...

America is at a pivotal crossroads. The soul of our nation is at stake and in peril. A new public narrative is, needed to unite Americans around common values and to counter the increasing discord and acrimony in our politics and culture. The process of healing and creating a more, perfect union in our nation must start now. The moral vision of Martin Luther King Jr.'s beloved community, which animated and galvanized the civil rights movement of the...