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The new book Daughters of Men, written by Rachel Vassel, profiles African-American women and their fathers. Dr. Helene Gayle, CEO of the nonprofit organization CARE, joins Vassel in a conversation about the unique relationship between black fathers and their daughters. Gayle is featured in the book.

The debut short-story collection by Nigerian writer and Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan offers a sobering view of a world in which atrocity is commonplace, and the unthinkable is the everyday.

Twenty years ago, author and literature professor Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina was looking for an undiscovered classic for her African-American-fiction class. What she found was Ann Petry's The Street, and she's been teaching it ever since.

With plenty of nods to The Great Gatsby Joseph O'Neill's Netherland explores dreams and ambition in post-Sept. 11 New York City. Maureen Corrigan calls the novel "marvelous."

In his new book, Washington: The Making of the American Capital, Fergus Bordewich reveals how Washington, D.C., became the nation's seat of power and — perhaps a lesser-known fact — how the historic enslavement of African-Americans played a role in that designation. Bordewich talks about his new book.

Some top black Republicans have hinted they might switch parties to support Barack Obama this fall. Farai Chideya asks three black conservatives who they're supporting for president and why.

John Reider, author of The Word of the Lord is Upon Me: The Righteous Performance of Martin Luther King, Jr., discusses the lingering influence of King's sermons.

Al Young took to writing poetry, as he describes it in one poem, "to make out the sound of my own background music." Now California's poet laureate, he writes about the blues, jazz and life in the geographically and culturally diverse state.

Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis in 1968 rallying for fair treatment and pay of African-American sanitation workers when he was assassinated. American history professor Michael Honey joins Fresh Air to discuss his book on the labor campaign King was leading at the time of his death.

The Rev. James H. Cone founded black liberation theology, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism. In an interview with Terry Gross, he explains the movement — and comments on controversial sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's longtime minister and a black liberation theology proponent.