Explores a Washington, DC slave trader's legal misadventures associated with transporting convict slaves through New Orleans.

William H. Williams operated a slave pen in Washington, DC, known as the Yellow House, and actively trafficked in enslaved men, women, and children for more than twenty years. His slave trading activities took an extraordinary turn in 1840 when he purchased twenty-seven enslaved convicts from the Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond with the understanding that he could carry them outside of the United States for sale. When Williams conveyed his captives illegally into New Orleans, allegedly while en route to the foreign country of Texas, he prompted a series of courtroom dramas that would last for almost three decades. Based on court records, newspapers, governors' files, slave manifests, slave narratives, travelers' accounts, and penitentiary data, Williams' Gang examines slave criminality, the coastwise domestic slave trade, and southern jurisprudence as it supplies a compelling portrait of the economy, society, and politics of the Old South.

"The Hell With A Gang" is a story of survival in the ruthless Los Angeles streets where many have suffered in some form at the hand of gang culture. Lara's collaborating technique transform some of the most horrendous real-life events into a quest to deter and denounce gang involvement by demonstrating how one man's status, devotion, and street gang fame was all a hoax, prompting the scream, "The Hell With A Gang."

Argues against joining gangs because such groups hurt people and neighborhoods.

A gripping tale of personal revolution by a man who went from Crips co-founder to Nobel Peace Prize nominee, author, and antigang activist When his L.A. neighborhood was threatened by gangbangers, Stanley Tookie Williams and a friend formed the Crips, but what began as protection became worse than the original gangs. From deadly street fights with their rivals to drive-by shootings and stealing cars, the Crips' influence -- and Tookie's reputation -- began to spread across L.A. Soon he was regularly under police surveillance, and, as a result, was arrested often, though always released because the charges did not stick. But in 1981, Tookie was convicted of murdering four people and was sent to death row at San Quentin in Marin County, California. Tookie maintained his innocence and began to work in earnest to prevent others from following his path. Whether he was creating nationwide peace protocols, discouraging adolescents from joining gangs, or writing books, Tookie worked tirelessly for the rest of his life to end gang violence. Even after his death, his legacy continues, supported by such individuals as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Snoop Dogg, Jesse Jackson, and many more. This posthumous edition of Blue Rage, Black Redemption features a foreword by Tavis Smiley and an epilogue by Barbara Becnel, which details not only the influence of Tookie's activism but also her eyewitness account of his December 2005 execution, and the inquest that followed. By turns frightening and enlightening, Blue Rage, Black Redemption is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and an invaluable lesson in how rage can be turned into redemption.

Williams, the cofounder of the Crips gang and a nominee for both the Nobel Peace Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature, became an anti-gang crusader before he was executed in December 2005. In this work he debunked urban myths about prison life and challenged young people to choose the right path. Selected for the Young Adult Library Services Association's Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults list.

Street-Gang and Tribal-Warrior Autobiographies is a study of the autobiographies of tribal-warrior cultures in North America, the Amazon, the Orinoco Basin, the highlands of Luzon, the island of Alor — of headhunters, women, Apaches, New Guinea big men and a Yanomami captive. The book also discusses tribal-warrior autobiographies closer to home: Colton Simpson’s Inside the Crips, Mona Ruiz’s Two Badges, Nathan McCall’s Makes Me Wanna Holler and Sanyika Shakur’s Monster, autobiographies that remember gangbanging at a time when there were close to 500 gang-related homicides a year in Los Angeles—a time when gangbangers were so alienated from the larger society that they reinvented something very similar to the tribal-warrior cultures right in the asphalt heart of American cities. Grisly, probing and resonant with the voices of generations of fighters, Street-Gang and Tribal-Warrior Autobiographies is an unsettling work of cross-disciplinary scholarship.