Real books. Real learning. No filler.
A selective weekly brief on Black and African diasporic literature, Afrofuturism, history, romance, culture, design, and learning worth your time. Find these wherever you get your books and media: your library, your bookseller, your streaming apps, or the free links provided.
The real pirates of the Caribbean included Black women. Riley builds an epic from the life of Jacquotte Delahaye, a seventeenth-century mixed-race pirate who raided the Caribbean for twenty years, then turned her fleet against the slave trade. History the movies never gave you.
Seven generations of Dupree women navigate love, loss, and the ties of family, in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois. Williams is a two-time Emmy winner and host of the Black and Published podcast. A newer voice worth backing early.
Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures: the mid-century space race decided by Black magic practitioners. Reads standalone, but it is book four in the Murder & Magic world. Three earlier books to binge if it hooks you, starting with The Conductors.
Brand new from the author of Seven Days in June. A woman searches for the handsome seatmate she met on a European flight, and the hunt takes her places she did not plan. Romantic, sexy, and already in demand everywhere.
Ward wrote this after losing her husband as the pandemic began. Widely considered one of the finest American essays of the decade. Twenty minutes, free to read right now. Her first essay collection of the same name arrived in 2026 if this lands for you.
Enslaved and free Black Americans fought in the Revolution and forced the question of what liberty actually meant. One of the strongest entries in the America 250 programming wave. Streaming free on PBS platforms; international viewers can find PBS documentaries through local broadcasters and PBS America.
The couple behind the AphroChic design house on what makes a Black home. Modern diasporic design with substance, not a mood board. Their book AphroChic: Celebrating the Legacy of the Black Family Home is the deeper follow-up.
A full Yale semester, free to anyone on earth. 1863 to the present: Reconstruction, migration, civil rights, Washington, Du Bois, Garvey, King, Malcolm X. Video, audio, and transcripts. No registration. Two hours a week at your own pace.
The archive begins when week two arrives. Every past week will live here, filterable by subject.