A revolutionary new history that exposes the "whites-only" roots of the American immigration regime.

In Racist by Design, award-winning historian Kelly Lytle Hernández reveals how generations of lawmakers and law enforcers built the American immigration system to encourage white immigrants while targeting nonwhite migrants for exclusion, punishment, and removal. The goal, often explicitly stated by the system’s architects, was to create a permanent caste of undocumented and criminalized workers to provide cheap labor for the American economy.

Many Americans’ understanding of the immigration system begins with the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late nineteenth century. Lytle Hernández expands that history by a full century, showing how the Haitian Revolution of the 1790s inspired not only America’s first immigration bans (to prevent news of a free Black republic from reaching our shores) but also its first refugee resettlement program (to welcome and support Haiti’s evicted enslavers.) She explains how Chinese Exclusion led the Supreme Court to disconnect immigration laws from the constitution. She reveals how eugenicists and Jim Crow segregationists built much of our current immigration regime as expressly "whites-only," and shows how during the Civil Rights Movement, Congress amended this system but never abolished it, leaving many of the regime’s racist rules and rituals intact today.

Lytle Hernández calls Racist by Design "an act of sabotage," a book that will expose the blueprints of the system, so it can be dismantled. A nuanced, concise, and brilliant work that will outrage and inflame readers, Racist by Design is a major work by one of our most important historians.

12 illustrations

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 22, 2026

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 304 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324117095

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324117094

• Author: Kelly Lytle Hernández

An illuminating portrait of five Black woman artists and the New York nightclub that helped inspire the civil rights movement.

Before they were household names, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Abbey Lincoln, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone needed a place to practice and perform. That place was the Village Gate, a New York City nightclub that Art D’Lugoff opened at the dawn of an unprecedented decade in civil rights. In the heart of the West Village, the women of the Gate created something that few could have imagined: a downtown hotspot for Black art, culture, music, and politics.

Freedom’s Gate depicts the groundbreaking artistry and deepening political convictions of the women of the Gate as they developed in the spotlight of art and revolution. From Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun to Nina Simone’s "Mississippi Goddam" and Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, Soyica Diggs Colbert brings to life the culture and performances that were the soundtrack to Black freedom struggles in the 1950s and 1960s. Colbert also shows how the women of the Gate raised money and awareness for groups at the vanguard of civil rights, brought the call for African independence home to New York City, and interwove Western and black diasporic influences into American popular performance, with supporting roles from stars and activists such as Harry Belafonte, Stokely Carmichael, and Sidney Poitier.

As the women relied on one another as entertainers, activists, intellectuals, and friends, the Gate became an outpost for freedom struggles outside of Harlem and the American South, a haven that did not abide by the norms of segregation or the expectations of "women’s work," and a world-renowned venue defined by its radical musicians, artists, and budding stars. Freedom’s Gate is a vibrant history of a little-known chapter of the civil rights movement that gave voice and soul to the call for liberation.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2026

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1324086645

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1324086642

• Author: Soyica Diggs Colbert

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Franchise comes the little-known story of the pioneering Black women artists and activists who were seen, but barely heard, at the 1963 March on Washington.

"Chatelain lets us see the complexities of these women’s lives, feel their pain, and marvel at their ability to cut through the thicket of racism and sexism."—Carol Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of White Rage

"Chatelain brilliantly reframes one of the most enduring images in American memory through the women erased from its frame."—Alexis Coe, New York Times bestselling author of You Never Forget Your First

There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath the Lincoln Memorial to call for an end to segregation. There were reverends and rabbis, activists and Rat-Pack icons—and of course the day's headliner, whose prophetic dream of a post-Jim Crow world has forever defined the Civil Rights Movement. But there is no “class photo” of the Black women who helped organize the march, performed on its main stage, or were honored during its “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom.”

In How Bright the Path Grows, Marcia Chatelain weaves a gleaming group portrait of these singular women. Among this cohort were several household names: vaudeville icon Josephine Baker; civil rights activist Rosa Parks gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, and Daisy Bates, champion of the Little Rock Nine. But many were relative unknowns, including Eva Jessye, the choir director who designed the day’s musical program, and Anna Hedgeman, the coordinator who pushed in the eleventh hour for a tribute to Black women’s work.

How Bright the Path Grows is a scintillating group biography, rendering the lives of thirteen Black women visionaries—some famous, others soon to be—in novelistic detail and like never seen before.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pantheon

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 29, 2026

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 416 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0553387251

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553387254

  Author: Marcia Chatelain

An urgent call to rekindle our shared American ideals.

We are living through a time of crisis. The problems we face grow more serious, while our divisions continue to widen. But our history overflows with people who used the power of our foundational virtues to overcome impossible obstacles.

In Stand, Senator Cory Booker offers a hopeful and practical path forward, weaving together powerful stories and stirring personal reflections to remind us that our country’s shared ideals can serve as a North Star to guide us, even when our journey feels especially dark and perilous. He argues that our principles are not luxuries; they are vital, strategic keys to our survival and success. By wielding these tools, we can reclaim our sense of common cause and change the course of our country’s history.

Stand takes readers on a trip through America’s past and present, showcasing moments when individuals and communities―in unexpected situations and against staggering odds―prevailed by embodying the best of our nation’s virtues. Through the stories of leaders from President George Washington and Congressman John Lewis, to suffragist Alice Paul and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to environmental justice advocate Ron Finley and disability rights activist Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins, Booker offers inspiring and actionable insights for Americans from all walks of life.

Published ahead of America’s 250th anniversary, Stand is a defiantly optimistic challenge to reclaim our national story and work together to redeem the American dream.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ St. Martin's Press

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 24, 2026

• Author: Cory Booker

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 272 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250436737

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250436733

From CNN’s Abby Phillip comes a fresh, nuanced portrait of legendary civil rights activist, Rev. Jesse Jackson.

“A joyful, rich, must-read biography of a politician whose flaws and gifts were in constant, intense competition.” ―Jake Tapper

Jesse Jackson was one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. He was a civil rights leader, activist, and an adept politician whose presidential runs shaped the course of Democrat politics to this day. In A Dream Deferred, Abby Phillip charts the course of his life through conversations with Jackson himself, as well as interviews with his inner circle, political peers, critics, and historians.

Focusing on his presidential runs in 1984 and, especially, 1988, Phillip highlights how Jackson built an unlikely coalition that showed the power of the Black vote and the resonance of an inclusive message of economic populism. His experience working under Martin Luther King; his organizing the SLCC’s Operation Breadbasket in Chicago and beyond; and his roots in the deep South combined into two astonishingly impactful presidential campaigns. Appealing to the working people of urban enclaves like Chicago, young people on college campuses, and Black people across the South, white farmers in rural areas and many others, he created the modern Democratic coalition―one that has been used by all major Democrats seeking national success from Obama to Biden to Harris.

Drawing on her expert reporting and natural storytelling skills, Abby Phillip has written a rousing popular history brimming with humanity, politics, and hope that sheds new light on an American icon.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Flatiron Books

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 27, 2026

• Author: Abby Phillip

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 352 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250806305

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250806307