Black History Month 2025

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well. The crime was never solved -- and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England -- the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans...

During Jim Crow America, there was only one place Black Americans could safely refuel their vehicles along what would eventually become iconic Route 66. But more than just a place to refuel, it was a place to fill up the soul, build community, and find strength. For two sisters, the Threatt Filling Station became the safe haven they needed after escaping the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.

"Scarlett Wilcox is willing to live out her life as a spinster if it means being able to continue her medical research to help a friend in need. After all, few husbands would tolerate her dressing as a man to attend lectures at the Royal Academy of Science. If the Duke of Torrance finds her such a specimen, she'll agree to a marriage in name only, much to the dismay of her elder sister, the Viscountess. When she's unmasked at a lecture on ophthalmology,...

"The year is 1862 and murderous desires are simmering in England. Nineteen-year-old Sarah Bonetta Forbes (Sally), once a princess of the Egbado Clan, desires one thing above all else: revenge against the British Crown and its system of colonial 'humanitarianism,' which stole her dignity and transformed her into royal property. From military men to political leaders, she's vowed to ruin all who've had a hand in her afflictions. The top of her list?...

"In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother,...

"The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and...

"Two half sisters, Effia and Esi, unknown to each other, are born into two different tribal villages in 18th century Ghana. Effia will be married off to an English colonial, and will live in comfort in the sprawling, palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle, raising half-caste children who will be sent abroad to be educated in England before returning to the Gold Coast to serve as administrators of the Empire. Her sister, Esi, will be imprisoned beneath...