EBOOK
About
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
B is for Beautiful, Brave, and Bright! And for a Book that takes a Bold journey through the alphabet of Black history and culture.
Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy.
It's a story of big ideas––P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments––G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures––H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for Malcom X. It's an ABC book like no other, and a story of hope and love.
In addition to rhyming text, the book includes back matter with information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W. E. B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer to Sam Cooke, and the Little Rock Nine to DJ Kool Herc.
A beautiful alphabet picture book that presents key names, moments, and places in Black history with text lyrically written by poet Rio Cortez. This is an opportunity for children to learn their ABCs to the sound of words beyond apple, boy, and cat, and an opportunity for young thinkers to prepare for big ideas.
Rio Cortez is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet who has received fellowships from Poet's House, Cave Canem, and CantoMundo foundations. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Rio writes and lives in Harlem where she works as a bookseller and buyer for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Lauren Semmer is an artist, children's book illustrator, and designer. She studied drawing at St. Paul College of Visual Arts and art history at New York University. Lauren's bright and charming work is featured on everything from kid's wall art to children's apparel. She lives in Manhattan with her family.
The ABCs of Black History: Terms and Figures
James Baldwin
A is for Anthem
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson
John Rosamond Johnson
NAACP
B is for Beautiful, Brave, Bright, Bold, Brotherhood, Believing
"Black is beautiful"
Kwame Brathwaite
Soul Train
Don Cornelius
C is for Community, Church, Civil Rights
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
D is for Diaspora
African Diaspora
slave trade
Senegal
Gambia
Guinea-Bissau
Mali
Angola
Congo
the Democrative Republic of Congo
Gabon
Nigeria
the Ivory Coast
Ghana
Sudan
Cameroon
E is for Explore, Education, Expanding the mind
literacy
segregation
Linda Brown and Brown v. Board of Education
Ruby Bridges
Little Rock Nine
Matthew Henson
Mae Jemison
F is for Food, Farmed, Fried Fish, Folklore, Family, Freedom
Emancipation Proclamation
sharecroppers
soul food
"jumping the broom"
G is for Go!, Great Migration
Black Codes
blues music
H is for Harlem, Heart, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
W.E.B. Du Bois
Alain Locke
Harlem Renaissance
James Weldon Johnson
Jean Toomer
Arna Bontemps
Countee Cullen
Claude McKay
Duke Ellington
Bessie Smith
Louis Armstrong
Ethel Waters
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
"Ma" Rainey
Eubie Blake
Apollo Theater
Paul Robeson
Marcus Garvey
Arthur Schomburg
Henry O. Tanner
James Van Der Zee
Aaron Douglass
Augusta Savage
Lillian Harris Dean (Pig Foot Mary)
I is for Imagine, Invent, Innovative
George Washington Carver
Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove)
Gwendolyn Brooks
Alvin Ailey
DJ Kool Herc
Jean-Michel Basquiat
J is for Joy, Juneteenth, J'Ouvert Morning
Carnival
Trinidad
Canboulay
K is for Kin, Kwanzaa
Dr. Maulana Karenga
Kwanzaa principles:
Umoja
Kujichagulia
Ujima
Ujamaa
Nia
Kuumba
Imani
kinara
Ki
B is for Beautiful, Brave, and Bright! And for a Book that takes a Bold journey through the alphabet of Black history and culture.
Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy.
It's a story of big ideas––P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments––G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures––H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for Malcom X. It's an ABC book like no other, and a story of hope and love.
In addition to rhyming text, the book includes back matter with information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W. E. B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer to Sam Cooke, and the Little Rock Nine to DJ Kool Herc.
A beautiful alphabet picture book that presents key names, moments, and places in Black history with text lyrically written by poet Rio Cortez. This is an opportunity for children to learn their ABCs to the sound of words beyond apple, boy, and cat, and an opportunity for young thinkers to prepare for big ideas.
Rio Cortez is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet who has received fellowships from Poet's House, Cave Canem, and CantoMundo foundations. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker, and Prairie Schooner, among others. Rio writes and lives in Harlem where she works as a bookseller and buyer for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Lauren Semmer is an artist, children's book illustrator, and designer. She studied drawing at St. Paul College of Visual Arts and art history at New York University. Lauren's bright and charming work is featured on everything from kid's wall art to children's apparel. She lives in Manhattan with her family.
The ABCs of Black History: Terms and Figures
James Baldwin
A is for Anthem
Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing
James Weldon Johnson
John Rosamond Johnson
NAACP
B is for Beautiful, Brave, Bright, Bold, Brotherhood, Believing
"Black is beautiful"
Kwame Brathwaite
Soul Train
Don Cornelius
C is for Community, Church, Civil Rights
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
D is for Diaspora
African Diaspora
slave trade
Senegal
Gambia
Guinea-Bissau
Mali
Angola
Congo
the Democrative Republic of Congo
Gabon
Nigeria
the Ivory Coast
Ghana
Sudan
Cameroon
E is for Explore, Education, Expanding the mind
literacy
segregation
Linda Brown and Brown v. Board of Education
Ruby Bridges
Little Rock Nine
Matthew Henson
Mae Jemison
F is for Food, Farmed, Fried Fish, Folklore, Family, Freedom
Emancipation Proclamation
sharecroppers
soul food
"jumping the broom"
G is for Go!, Great Migration
Black Codes
blues music
H is for Harlem, Heart, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston
W.E.B. Du Bois
Alain Locke
Harlem Renaissance
James Weldon Johnson
Jean Toomer
Arna Bontemps
Countee Cullen
Claude McKay
Duke Ellington
Bessie Smith
Louis Armstrong
Ethel Waters
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
"Ma" Rainey
Eubie Blake
Apollo Theater
Paul Robeson
Marcus Garvey
Arthur Schomburg
Henry O. Tanner
James Van Der Zee
Aaron Douglass
Augusta Savage
Lillian Harris Dean (Pig Foot Mary)
I is for Imagine, Invent, Innovative
George Washington Carver
Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove)
Gwendolyn Brooks
Alvin Ailey
DJ Kool Herc
Jean-Michel Basquiat
J is for Joy, Juneteenth, J'Ouvert Morning
Carnival
Trinidad
Canboulay
K is for Kin, Kwanzaa
Dr. Maulana Karenga
Kwanzaa principles:
Umoja
Kujichagulia
Ujima
Ujamaa
Nia
Kuumba
Imani
kinara
Ki