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Lawrence Otis Graham writes about the unique history of one U.S. senator in his book, The Senator and the Socialite. Graham's book is a true story about Sen. Blanche Bruce, who in 1875 became the first African-American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate, and his wife, Josephine Willson Bruce.

In 1940, Chicago-based author Richard Wright published Native Son, sparking a 20-year run of trailblazing for other African-American writers. Wright died of a heart attack in Paris in the autumn of 1960, leaving behind an unfinished novel, which his daughter is now publishing.

The Bridge, David Remnick's new book, is the story of President Obama's journey to the Oval Office. Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, tells Morning Edition how Obama's first run for national office — which he lost — helped shape his political career.

Writer Heidi Durrow says she has read Nella Larsen's Passing more than a dozen times. The 1929 novel tells the story of two light-skinned, African-American women — childhood friends who are reconnected after leading drastically different lives. Durrow says Larsen demands that her readers transcend society's assigned labels.

Black communities in Kentucky and Tennessee have celebrated the eighth of August for more than 150 years. It's a day for barbecue, loved ones and marking freedom from slavery.

Octavius Catto led the fight to desegregate Philadelphia's horse-drawn streetcars, raised all-black regiments to fight in the Civil War, and pushed for black voting rights — all before the age of 32. Despite all that, he's barely remembered today. But a new book sheds life on his groundbreaking work.

Gonzalo Rubalcaba is one of the most popular pianists on the jazz scene. The Cuban expatriate's latest CD touches on some of the music he was forbidden to learn in Communist Cuba: the work of Cuban classical composers. Rolando Arrieta profiles the artist.

When it was published in 1960, Harper Lee's modest novel helped Americans think differently about race. Now, 50 years later, To Kill a Mockingbird still resonates in a much-changed America. NPR's Lynn Neary examines the lasting impact of Scout Finch and her father, Atticus — a lawyer who defends a black man unjustly accused of rape.

In a powerful memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey surveys the storm-battered landscape of the place she once called home. Beyond Katrina is a powerful meditation on things long gone that will never come back.

More than 6 million African-Americans moved from the South to cities in the Northeast and Midwest between 1915 and 1970. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson documents the resulting demographic and social changes in her history of the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns.