List
Intriguing Black Lives on Hoopla Audiobooks
These audiobook biographies and memoirs will introduce to people who will broaden your awareness of what it means to be Black in this country. All are available for immediate download on the Hoopla website or app.
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All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life of Eugene Bullard--Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, Spy
2019 by Keith, PhilGet this itemExtraordinary overachiever Eugene Bullard led a life varied enough for several remarkable individuals as a boxer, member of the Foreign Legion, fighter pilot, nightclub impresario, and spy for the French during World War II. He met many famous people along the way and deserves to be famous himself.
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Barracoon: The Story of the Last 'Black Cargo'
2018 by Hurston, Zora NealeGet this itemThe voice of the last living survivor of an African slave raid would have been lost forever had it not been preserved by Zora Neale Hurston, herself a major figure in the American literary canon. The story of this book's publication is a remarkable tale itself.
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Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
2018 by Stallworth, RonGet this itemThis is one of those real-life stories that would seem unbelievable if it were not true: a Black detective manages to infiltrate the Klan by posing as white and winning the trust of its leadership in a daring undercover mission.
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The Butler: A Witness to History
2013 by Haygood, WilGet this itemEugene Allen worked as a butler in the White House for Presidents from Truman to Reagan. Wil Haygood recounts his life and the making of the movie based on it.
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Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief
2019 by Payne, DorisGet this itemWhat Doris Payne lacked in scruples she made up for in style and savvy, rising from poverty to glamor as a world class jewel thief. She relates her own exploits with the kind of charm and brio that made her so successful in her career.
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Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock
2011 by Margolick, DavidGet this itemThe images of Elizabeth Eckford (Black) and Hazel Bryan (white) became famous when they were preserved in a photograph that symbolized the effort to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. Historian David Margolick chronicles their lives, overlapping yet disparate, in all their complexity.
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Enemies in Love: A German POW, a Black Nurse, and an Unlikely Romance
2018 by Clark, AlexisGet this itemAn African American woman falls for an imprisoned German soldier during the Second World War in this family history that sheds light on the prejudices of their time and their struggles to overcome them.
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Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took down America's Most Powerful Mobster
2018 by Carter, Stephen L.Get this itemRenowned novelist Stephen Carter recounts the life of his own grandmother, who not only achieved success as a lawyer in 1940s America, but also helped bring down the notorious gangster Lucky Luciano.
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Negroland: A Memoir
2015 by Jefferson, MargoGet this itemMemoirist Margo Jefferson introduces readers to her own youthful world of upper-class Chicago African Americans, a place of esteem and privilege yet never far removed from racial and social prejudice.
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Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street's First Black Millionaire
2015 by White, ShaneGet this itemJeremiah Hamilton's unscrupulous and ruthless rise to wealth may not be admirable but it was remarkable considering he did it as a Black man in 19th-century New York City.
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Say I'm Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets, and Love
2020 by Johnson, E. DoloresGet this itemE. Dolores Johnson explores her own life as a biracial woman while telling the tale of her mother's decision to let her white Indiana family believe she was dead rather than acknowledge she started a family with the Black man she loved.
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White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing
2017 by Lukasik, GailGet this itemThis is the story of a Black woman who chose to pass as white to improve her lot in the Jim Crow South, told by her own daughter, who tries to understand what led her mother to make the momentous decision that altered her whole life.
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