This inspirational audiobook encapsulates African American history and invites conversations at all levels. Carole Boston Weatherford’s riveting text is an informative reminder of yesterday, a hopeful image for today, and an aspirational dream of tomorrow.
Starting from 1619 and stretching more than four hundred years, this audiobook features such pivotal moments in history as the arrival of enslaved people in Jamestown, Virginia; Nat Turner’s rebellion; the integration of the US military; the Selma to Montgomery marches; and peaceful present-day protests. It also celebrates the feats of African American musicians and athletes, such as Duke Ellington and Florence Griffith Joyner.
At the end of the audiobook, listeners will find descriptions of the people, places, and events that are featured, along with a note from Carole Boston Weatherford.
Incredibly timely, this book reckons with a painful history while serving as a testament to the human spirit’s ability to persevere in even the most hopeless of circumstances. Its universal message of faith, strength, and resilience will resonate with listeners of all ages.
Author
Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Boston Weatherford is a two-time NAACP Image Award Winner, an ALA-ALSC Children’s Literature Legacy Award Winner, and the author of Standing in the Need of Prayer, a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award Winner; Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre, which won the Coretta Scott King Author and Illustrator Awards, a Caldecott Honor, and a Sibert Honor; the Newbery Honor Book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom; Family Feast!; and many other acclaimed books. She was also named the 2025–2026 Young People’s Poet Laureate. Carole was born in Baltimore, where she now resides.
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Frank Morrison
Frank Morrison started his journey as a graffiti artist in New Jersey, tagging walls with spray paint. It wasn’t until he visited the Louvre Museum in Paris with his dance group that he realized painting was his true creative path. His work has been featured at Art Basel, SCOPE Miami Beach, and Red Dot art fairs, and shown at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He is the illustrator of over twenty children’s books, including the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winners Standing in the Need of Prayer and R-E-S-P-E-C-T, the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe Award winner Jazzy Miz Mozetta, and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor books Little Melba and Her Big Trombone and Let the Children March. Frank now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
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