“Mystal is a grassroots legal superhero, and his superpower is the ability to explain to the masses in clear language the all-too-human forces at play behind the making of our laws.” –Michael Eric Dyson, New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop

In Bad Law, the New York Times bestselling author of Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution reimagines what our legal system, and society at large, could look like if we could move past legislation plagued by racism, misogyny, and corruption. Through accessible yet detailed prose and trenchant wit, Mystal argues that these egregiously awful laws–his “Bill of Wrongs”–continue to cause systematic and individual harm and should be repealed completely.

By exposing the flawed foundations of the rules we live by, and through biting humor and insight, Bad Law offers a crisp, pertinent take on:

abortion and the Hyde Amendment, and the role federal funding, or lack thereof, has played in depriving women of necessary health and reproductive care

But, as the man Samantha Bee calls “irrepressible and righteously indignant” and Matt Levine of Bloomberg Opinion calls “the funniest lawyer in America,” points out, these laws do not come to us from on high; we write them, and we can and should unwrite them. In a fierce, funny, and wholly original takedown spanning all the hot-button topics in the country today, one of our most brilliant legal thinkers points the way to a saner tomorrow.

One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.

The Man the Moment Demands will empower you to become the right man in every moment by embodying the ten characteristics of the comprehensive man: the Fighter, the Provider, the Leader, the Lover, the Nurturer, the Gentleman, the Friend, the Husband, the Father, and the Son. With The Man the Moment Demands you’ll learn how to

• unpack the impact of your past and unlock the power to shape your future;
• embrace transparency and express the full spectrum of your emotions while maintaining self-control;
• evolve beyond the “alpha male” myth through example, not intimidation; and
• answer the question “Who are you?” to strip away the facade and live authentically.

This is not just a transformative book; it’s a blueprint. A rite of passage for those ready to rise and rediscover what it truly means to be a man–authentically human. One that will empower you to be the man the moments demands.

ECPA BESTSELLER

From the governor of Maryland, the “compassionate” (People), “startling” (Baltimore Sun), “moving” (Chicago Tribune) true story of two kids with the same name: One went on to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated combat veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader. The other is serving a life sentence in prison.

The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.

In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

Former Vice-Chairman of the U.S. President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, John Hope Bryant, delivers an accessible and powerful resource for everyday Americans seeking to build a strong financial foundation. This book is an easy-to-read first step toward a fulfilling financial future, helping you understand your relationship to work and money, and a key component to untangling the surprisingly simple puzzle of personal finance.

With an insightful foreword by Doug McMillon, President and CEO of Walmart Inc., you’ll learn how to create wealth for yourself and your family, regardless of your educational or employment background, and how to establish a financial mindset that contributes to a sound future. You’ll also discover:

• The answers to tough money questions, including the actual utility of new financial inventions like cryptocurrency
• How to think about exchanging your time and effort for money and the conditions under which you should agree to work
• Plain-English discussions of the principles of responsible long-term investing and how it differs from speculation
  

Acting as a critical pillar for those seeking to build a rock-solid financial foundation, Financial Literacy for All is a must-have book for working professionals, blue-collar workers, members of young families, and established businesspeople looking for a better, more secure future for themselves and the ones they care about.

Mystal brings his trademark humor, expertise, and rhetorical flair to explain concepts like substantive due process and the right for the LGBTQ community to buy a cake, and to arm readers with the knowledge to defend themselves against conservatives who want everybody to live under the yoke of eighteenth-century white men. The same tactics Mystal uses to defend the idea of a fair and equal society on MSNBC and CNN are in this book, for anybody who wants to deploy them on social media.

You don’t need to be a legal scholar to understand your own rights. You don’t need to accept the “whites only” theory of equality pushed by conservative judges. You can read this book to understand that the Constitution is trash, but doesn’t have to be.

The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic demonstrations in the streets, discussions in the workplace, and conversations at home about the financial gaps that remain between white and Black Americans. This deeply investigated book shows the scores of setbacks that have held the Black-white wealth gap in place—from enslavement to redlining to banking discrimination—and, ultimately, the reversals that occurred in the mid-2020s as the push for racial equity became a polarized political debate.

Fifteen Cents on the Dollar follows the lives of four Black Millennial professionals and a banking company founded to close the Black-white wealth gap. That company, known as Greenwood, a reference to the historic Black Wall Street district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, generated immense excitement and hope among people looking for new ways of business that might lead to greater equity. But the twists and turns of Greenwood’s journey also raise tough questions about what equality really means.

Seasoned journalist-academics Louise Story and Ebony Reed present a nuanced portrait of Greenwood’s founders—the entertainment executive Ryan Glover; the Grammy-winning rapper Michael Render, better known as Killer Mike; and the Civil Rights leader and two-term Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young—along with new revelations about their lives, careers, and families going back to the Civil War. Equally engaging are the stories of the lesser-known individuals—a female tech employee from rural North Carolina trying to make it in a big city; a rising leader at the NAACP whose father is in prison; an owner of a BBQ stand in Atlanta fighting to keep his home; and a Black man in a biracial marriage grappling with his roots when his father is shot by the police.

In chronicling these staggering injustices, Fifteen Cents on the Dollar shows why so little progress has been made on the wealth gap and provides insights Americans should consider if they want lasting change.