Helen Plum Library

"Tom Brokaw is known as one of the hardest-working, most successful people in broadcast journalism. His success is attributed to his work ethic, his instinct for identifying the significance of the news in the lives of ordinary people, and his reputation for always showing up for others. In this heartfelt family story, Tom shows the values and lessons he absorbed from his ancestors, parents, and others who settled in South Dakota and worked hard to...

"This book chronicles the struggles and triumphs of African American athletes in the Modern Olympic Games, from 1896 through the 2020 Tokyo Games. It explores the lives and careers of both legendary and little-known Black Olympians as they sought to honor themselves, their race, and their nation on the world stage"-- "The first book to fully chronicle the struggles and triumphs of African American athletes in the Modern Olympic summer games. In the...

When President Theodore Roosevelt welcomed the country's most visible Black man, Booker T. Washington, into his circle of counselors in 1901, the two confronted a shocking and violent wave of racist outrage. In the previous decade, Jim Crow laws had legalized discrimination in the South, eroding social and economic gains for former slaves. Lynching was on the rise, and Black Americans faced new barriers to voting. Slavery had been abolished, but if...

A descendant of America's first two Black generals, who helped integrate the American military and created the Tuskegee Airmen, tells his family's story across five generations, from post-Civil War America to modern day Asia and Europe

"From the author of the definitive biography of Frank Sinatra, the story of how jazz arrived at the pinnacle of American culture in 1959, told through the journey of three towering artists-Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans-who came together to create the most famous and bestselling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue. The myth of the 60s depends on the 1950s being the before times of conformity, segregation, straightness-The Lonely Crowd...

How do you tell a story? Before Toni Morrison was a Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel Prize-winning author, she was Chloe Ardelia Wofford, a little girl in Ohio who was both the only Black child in her first-grade classroom and the only student who was able to read. This is the true story of how that young girl learned from her upbringing, surrounded herself with stories, and made a tremendous impact on the world. Toni Morrison's pen was her sword,...

Party of One shatters the many myths and caricatures that shroud one of the world's most secretive political organizations and its leader. Many observers misread Xi during his early years in power, projecting their own hopes that he would steer China toward more political openness, rule of law, and pro-market economics. Having masked his beliefs while climbing the party hierarchy, Xi has centralized decision-making powers, encouraged a cult of personality...

"The conquest of indigenous land in the American East through corrupt treaties and genocidal violence laid the groundwork for the conquest of the American West. Acclaimed author Peter Stark exposes the fundamental conflicts at play through the little-known but consequential struggle between two extraordinary leaders. William Henry Harrison was born to a prominent Virginia family, son of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He journeyed...

"A colorful, fascinating look at growing up in the royal family over the centuries, from the Plantagenets and Tudors to the Windsors and Cambridges. For as long as the British royal family has existed, their children have been brought up in ways that seem bizarre and eccentric to the rest of us - the royal family's obsession with making their children tough and independent as early as possible, often by delegating their parental duties to staff, goes...

"Anyone who has read Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air or has seen a recent photo of climbers standing in line to get to the top of Everest may think they have the mountain pretty well figured out. It's an extreme landscape where bad weather and incredible altitude can occasionally kill, but more so an overcrowded, trashed-out recreation destination where rich clients pad their egos--and social media feeds--while exploiting local Sherpas. There's some...