News from the Square

Black History Month—Square One's Three Key Books in Celebration and Support of the African-American Community

Garden City Park, NY: February Is Black History Month, and Square One chooses to celebrate by shining a light on three remarkable Square One titles that remain historically and culturally important in recognition of the African-American experience—past, present, and future.

Commissioned, published, and produced in 1924 by the Knights of Columbus Historical Commission at the height of this country’s Black Renaissance, The Gift of Black Folk (ISBN: 978-0-7570-0319-6) was the first critically acclaimed black history ever to be written by the late writer and cofounder of the NAACP Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, about whom the late Martin Luther King, Jr. had the following to say in his lifetime: "[Du Bois'] singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people."

Square One's edition of this work represents a newly re-edited and reissued version of the material. The book features an Introduction by Carl Anderson who, prior to becoming Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, spent nearly a decade working on issues of racial equality as a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Anderson states in the Introduction that "A hundred years after W.E.B. Du Bois helped cofound the NAACP, the United States can view its civil rights achievements with pride. African Americans have served on the Supreme Court, in the Cabinet, and, finally, as President of the United States. The Gift of Black Folk allows us to fully appreciate these monumental achievements. It is our belief that Du Bois' classic work will continue to inform and inspire for many generations to come."

Equally groundbreaking in the realm of book publishing has been our publication of Black Broadway: African Americans on the Great White Way (ISBN: 978-0-7570-0388-2) by theater historian and six-time Tony award-winning producer Stewart F. Lane.

This hardcover book is the first illustrated history or "coffee table"-format title that explores both in words and pictures the tumultuous and often rocky road traveled by African-American actors and actresses over the past two centuries on their way to artistic reward and recognition on the Broadway stage. Featuring a Foreword by Tony award-winning director Kenny Leon, Black Broadway provides an entertaining history of a Broadway of which few are aware.

And since much of Square One's editorial focus remains aimed at issues of alternative and conventional health, we also want to bring readers' attention to a forthcoming health book of ours entitled Black Health Matters: The Vital Facts You Must Know to Protect Your Health and Those of Your Loved Ones (ISBN: 978-0-7570-0507-7). As reiterated by African-American doctor and our book's author Dr. Richard Walker, the fact remains that African Americans continue to top the list of groups afflicted by hypertension, stroke, diabetes, heart disease, renal failure, and cancer. In his book, Dr. Walker shows how key medical research from the past years—much of which points to a chronic lack of Vitamin D3 as the crucial missing puzzle piece of African-American health—can now help determine a commonsense way to prevent, reduce, and possibly eliminate these killers from the basic tenor of the African-American experience at present.

Now set to come out this June 2021, Black Health Matters is a book destined to become a meaningful tool to the African-American community at a time when the importance of health cannot be overstated.

Meanwhile, both The Gift of Black Folk and Black Broadway are now available here from Square One Publishers, on Amazon, on B&N.com, and wherever else books are sold nationwide.