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Spotlight on Black History
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Heroes for Civil Rights
by David A. Adler
Profiles the leaders and heroes of the civil rights movements, including Fannie Lou Hamer, the Little Rock Nine, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; examining what historical contribution they made in the effort to make equality a right for all.
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A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot that Shook the Nation One Year after the Civil War
by Stephen V. Ash
In May 1866, just a year after the Civil War ended, Memphis erupted in a three-day spasm of racial violence that saw whites rampage through the city’s black neighborhoods. By the time the fires consuming black churches and schools were put out, forty-six freed people had been murdered. Congress, furious at this and other evidence of white resistance in the conquered South, launched what is now called Radical Reconstruction, policies to ensure the freedom of the region’s four million blacks—and one of the most remarkable experiments in American history.
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Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II
by Douglas A. Blackmon
Reveals how, from the late 1870s through the mid-twentieth century, thousands of African-American men were arrested and forced to work off outrageous fines by serving as unpaid labor to businesses and provincial farmers. Using a vast record of original documents and personal narratives, Douglas A. Blackmon unearths the lost stories of slaves and their descendants who journeyed into freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation and then back into the shadow of involuntary servitude shortly thereafter. By turns moving, sobering, and shocking, this account reveals the stories of those who fought unsuccessfully against the re-emergence of human labor trafficking.
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Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America
by Tonya Bolden
A chronicle of the wealthy young African-American's rags-to-riches story describes her early days in Indian Territory prior to Oklahoma's statehood, her sudden wealth when oil was discovered on her land allotment and how she was targeted by corrupt and greedy adults.
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Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists
by Tonya Bolden
Published in conjunction with the Smithsonian American Art Museum, an accompaniment to a traveling exhibition highlights influential and important African-American twentieth-century artists, from those of the early part of the century to important participants in the Harlem Renaissance and right up to those involved in the vigorous contemporary art scene.
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African American Almanac: 400 Years of Triumph, Courage and Excellence
by Lean'tin L. Bracks
A legacy of pride, struggle, and triumph spanning more than 400 years is presented through the biographies of more than 750 influential figures, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and 150 rare photographs and illustrations. Covering events surrounding the civil rights movement; African American literature, art, and music; religion within the black community; and advances in science and medicine, this reference connects history to the issues currently facing the African American community and provides a range of information on society and culture.
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The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement
by Taylor Branch
The King Years distills the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning writings on civil rights history into a slim, elegant, quick-reading volume that highlights eighteen crucial events in America's struggle toward racial equality. Although Martin Luther King's life frames the events treated here -- beginning with his first public address during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, and ending with his assassination in 1968 -- this is not a biography. Instead, readers will discover a well-rendered, compressed historical narrative that illuminates a period of radical social change in American history.
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Rosa Parks
by Douglas Brinkley
Best known for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks learned from childhood about the degradation imposed on African-Americans by Jim Crow laws. Before her open defiance of the segregation law in 1955, she participated in quieter forms of civil rights activism, and in later years she worked for Congressman John Conyers--still supporting the cause of social justice. Author and history professor Douglas Brinkley's biography provides a "wealth of insight and rich portraiture" (Publishers Weekly) to give a clear account of both Parks' life and the Civil Rights movement itself.
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Another America: The Story of Liberia and the Former Slaves Who Ruled It
by James Ciment
In 1820, a group of about eighty African Americans reversed the course of history and sailed back to Africa, to a place they would name after liberty itself. They went under the banner of the American Colonization Society, a white philanthropic organization with a dual agenda: to rid America of its blacks, and to convert Africans to Christianity. After breaking free from their white overseers, the settlers founded Liberia—Africa’s first black republic—in 1847. This history covers Marcus Garvey, who coaxed his followers toward Liberia in the 1920s; the rubber king Harvey Firestone, who built his empire on the backs of native Liberians; the brilliant intellectual Edward Blyden, one of the first black nationalists; the Baltimore-born explorer Benjamin Anderson, seeking a legendary city of gold in the Liberian hinterland; and President William Tubman, a descendant of Georgia slaves, whose economic policies brought Cadillacs to the streets of Monrovia, among others. In making Liberia, the Americoes transplanted the virtues and vices of their country of birth.
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Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
by Catherine Clinton
Celebrated for her courageous exploits as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman has entered history as one of nineteenth-century America's most enduring and important figures. But just who was this remarkable woman? To John Brown, leader of the Harper's Ferry slave uprising, she was General Tubman. For the many slaves she led north to freedom, she was Moses. To the slaveholders who sought her capture, she was a thief and a trickster. To abolitionists, she was a prophet. In this biography, Harriet Tubman is revealed for the first time as a singular and complex character, a woman who defied simple categorization.
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Fleeing for Freedom: Stories of the Underground Railroad
by Levi Coffin
Includes selected narratives from the two most important contemporary chroniclers of the Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin and William Still. Here are firsthand descriptions of the experiences of escaped slaves making their way to freedom in the North and in Canada in the years before the Civil War. The introduction provides basic information about the scope and workings of the Underground Railroad and its impact on slaves, slaveholders, and the Northern abolitionist societies that were so heavily involved. Fleeing for Freedom offers gripping personal accounts of one of the great collaborations between whites and blacks in American history.
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A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name
by Ann Nixon Cooper
President Barack Obama reflected on the life of Ann Nixon Cooper in his election-night speech, singling her out of millions of voters, he said, because she was “born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky, when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons—because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.” In this memoir, the 107-year-old woman reflects on her long and inspiring life, a culturally rich life, despite racial segregation and economic struggles.
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Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50
by Michael Cunningham
A photographic tribute to the spirit and achievements of African-American women of merit profiles fifty women over the age of fifty who have distinguished themselves in the corporate, political, or entertainment worlds, in a volume that includes profiles of such individuals as Ruby Dee, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Marion Wright Edelman.
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The Tuskegee Airmen
by Sarah De Capua
Describes the history of the Tuskegee airmen, an Air Force squadron of African Americans who fought in World War II and were pioneers in the racial integration of the United States armed forces.
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Black History for Beginners
by Denise Dennis
Black History For Beginners covers a rich but often ignored history and chronicles the black struggle from capture and enslavement in Africa through the Civil Rights movement and up to today and the new and different kinds of struggles that black people face today.
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Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell
by Karen DeYoung
Over the course of a lifetime of service to his country, Colin Powell became a national hero, a beacon of wise leadership and one of the most trusted political figures in America. In Soldier, the award-winning Washington Post editor Karen DeYoung takes us from Powell’s humble roots as the son of Jamaican immigrants to his meteoric rise through the military ranks during the Cold War and Desert Storm to his agonizing deliberations over whether to run for president. Culminating in his stint as Secretary of State in the Bush Administration and his role in making the case for war with Iraq, this is a sympathetic but objective portrait of a great but fallible man.
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Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen
by Philip Dray
A compelling history of the Reconstruction era is viewed from the perspective of America's first black members of Congress and their key role in promoting such reforms as public education for all children, equal rights, and protection from Klan violence in the wake of the Civil War, profiling such figures as Robert Smalls, Robert Brown Elliott, and P. B. S. Pinchback. Neglected by most historians, these individuals—some of whom were former slaves—played a critical role in pushing for much-needed reforms in the wake of a traumatic civil war, including equal rights, public education, and protection from Klan violence. Most important, their example laid the foundation for future black political leaders. Covering the fraught period between the Emancipation Proclamation and Jim Crow, Dray reclaims the reputations of men who, though flawed, led a valiant struggle for social justice.
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Freedom by the Sword: The U.S. Colored Troops, 1862-1867
by William A. Dobak
From late 1862 to the spring of 1865, as the Civil War raged on, the federal government accepted more than 180,000 black men as soldiers, something it had never done before on such a scale. Known collectively as the United States Colored Troops and organized in segregated regiments led by white officers, some of these soldiers guarded army posts along major rivers; others fought Confederate raiders to protect Union supply trains, and still others took part in major operations like the Siege of Petersburg and the Battle of Nashville. After the war, many of the black regiments took up posts in the former Confederacy to enforce federal Reconstruction policy. Freedom by the Sword tells the story of these soldiers' recruitment, organization, and service.
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Buffalo Soldiers: African American Troops in the US Forces, 1866-1945
by Ron Field
The first regular army regiments of African Americans were authorized by Congress in July 1866. These brave men fought not only tirelessly against the enemy, but also against prejudice and discrimination within the armed forces. Their efforts culminated in the integration of the armed forces, starting in 1946. This book covers the history of African-American soldiers, from the American Civil War and their initial involvement on the western frontier during the Plains Wars, where they were nicknamed "Buffalo Soldiers" by their Native American enemies. It then examines their role during the age of "American Imperialism," campaigning across Cuba and Mexico before distinguishing themselves in the trenches of World War I. Finally, it examines their participation in World War II, where almost half a million African Americans fought and died for their country.
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Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave
by David Fiske
Examines Northup's life as a slave and reveals details of his life after he regained his freedom, relating how he traveled around the Northeast giving public lectures, worked with an Underground Railroad agent in Vermont to help fugitive slaves reach freedom in Canada, and was connected with several theatrical productions based upon his experiences. The tale of Northup's life demonstrates how the victims of the American system of slavery were not just the slaves themselves, but any free person of color—all of whom were potential kidnap victims, and whose lives were affected by that constant threat.
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The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Country
by Henry Louis Gates
Profiles one hundred influential African Americans who helped shape the history of the twentieth century, including revered figures in the fields of music, literature, sports, science, politics, and the civil rights movement. This colorful collection of personalities includes much-loved figures such as scientist George Washington Carver, contemporary favorites such as comedian Richard Pryor and novelist Alice Walker, and even less-well-known people such as aviator Bessie Coleman. Gates and West also recognize the achievements of controversial figures such as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and rap artist Tupac Shakur. Lively, accessible, and illustrated throughout, The African-American Century is a celebration of black achievement and a tribute to the black struggle for freedom in America.
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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
by Henry Louis Gates
Companion book to the documentary that aired on PBS chronicling the full sweep of 500 years of African American history, from the origins of slavery on the African continent and the arrival of the first black conquistador, Juan Garrido, in Florida in 1513, through five centuries of remarkable historic events right up to today—when Barack Obama is serving his second term as President. The book examines the ethnic origins—and the regional and cultural diversity—of the Africans whose enslavement led to the creation of the African American people. It delves into the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives that African Americans have created in the half a millennium since their African ancestors first arrived on these shores. By highlighting the complex internal debates and class differences within the Black Experience in this country, readers will learn that the African American community has never been a truly uniform entity. The road to freedom for black people in America has not been linear; rather, much like the course of a river, it has been full of loops and eddies, slowing and occasionally reversing current.
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Life Upon These Shores: Looking at African American History, 1513-2008
by Henry Louis Gates
Informed by the latest, sometimes provocative scholarship and including more than seven hundred images—ancient maps, fine art, documents, photographs, cartoons, posters—Life Upon These Shores focuses on defining events, debates, and controversies, as well as the signal achievements of people famous and obscure. Gates takes us from the sixteenth century through the ordeal of slavery, from the Civil War and Reconstruction through the Jim Crow era and the Great Migration; from the civil rights and black nationalist movements through the age of hip-hop to the Joshua generation. By documenting and illuminating the sheer diversity of African American involvement in American history, society, politics, and culture, Gates bracingly disabuses us of the presumption of a single “black experience.”
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The Great Migration: Journey to the North
by Eloise Greenfield
A five-part poem by award-winning collaborators, told from multiple perspectives with powerful, evocative collage artwork, poignantly illuminates the experiences of families like their own, who left their homes in search of better lives during the Great Migration.
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The Butler: A Witness to History
by Wil Haygood
From Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities fellow Wil Haygood comes an inquiry into the life of Eugene Allen, the butler who ignited a nation's imagination and inspired a major motion picture: Lee Daniels' The Butler. With a foreword by the director Lee Daniels, The Butler not only explores Allen's life and service to eight American Presidents, from Truman to Reagan, but also includes an essay that explores the history of black images on celluloid and in Hollywood, and fifty-seven pictures of Eugene Allen, his family, the presidents he served, and the cast of the movie.
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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
by Annette Gordon-Reed
This National Book Award winner traces the history of the Hemings family from early eighteenth-century Virginia to their dispersal after Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, and describes their family ties to the third president against a backdrop of Revolutionary America and the French Revolution.
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Harlem Stomp!: A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
by Laban Carrick Hill
Explores the literary, artistic, and intellectual creativity of the Harlem Renaissance and discusses the lives and work of Louis Armstrong, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and other notable figures of the era.
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Indiana's African-American Heritage: Essays from Black History News & Notes
by Wilma L. Gibbs
This anthology features sixteen articles that first appeared in Black History News & Notes, an Indiana Historical Society newsletter. The articles cover such topics as education and culture, women’s history, history of cities and rural communities, biographies, and Indiana African-American history sources.
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Articles of Faith: African-American Community Churches in Chicago
by Dave Jordano
Photographer Dave Jordano documents the at once humble and dynamic storefront churches of Chicago’s African American neighborhoods. The exquisite photographs that capture the identity and personalities of each church, from the hand-lettered signs to the icons. Infused in the space of these makeshift churches is also a sense of history that traces back to a time in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when one of the only forms of open expression available to African Americans was religious practice. These powerful images illuminate a vital component of urban life for many African Americans and speak to the links between the past and present African American experience.
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Distinguished African American Scientists of the 20th Century
by James H. Kessler
From George Washington Carver to Dr. Mae Jemison, African Americans have been making outstanding contributions in the field of science. This unique resource goes beyond the headlines in chronicling not just the scientific achievements but also the lives of 100 remarkable men and women. Each biography provides an absorbing account of the scientist's struggles, which often included overcoming prejudice, as they pursued their educational and professional goals.
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The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Martin Luther King
Drawing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s unpublished writings and other materials housed in Stanford University's archives, a civil rights scholar assembles a continuous first-person narrative of King's life.
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Notable Black American Scientists
by Kristine M. Krapp
Profiles approximately 250 black Americans who have made contributions to the sciences, including inventors, researchers, award winners, and educators
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The Chitlin' Circuit: And the Road to Rock 'n' Roll
by Preston Lauterbach
From the late 1930s to the early 1940s, something called the "chitlin' circuit" was developing in the back rooms of clubs and juke joints across the southern U.S. Catering to black audiences, these were places where Little Richard and James Brown got their start, along with countless others -- some of whom crossed over into mainstream rock 'n' roll, and plenty who didn't. Combining firsthand reporting with historical research, music journalist Preston Lauterbach provides insight into the history of the circuit and the birth of rock 'n' roll, and into the promoters, club owners, and musicians who made it happen. "A rocking read," says Publishers Weekly.
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W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919
by David L. Lewis
Chronicling the long career of a prime mover in America's nascent civil rights movement, a Pulitzer and Bancroft Prize-winning biography shows the major impact this great and controversial thinker had on America.
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W.E.B. DuBois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century 1919-1963
by David L. Lewis
The second volume of the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography begins with the end of World War I and chronicles the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance, the little-known political agenda behind it, Du Bois's battle for equality and justice for African Americans, and his self-exile in Ghana.
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Harlem Hellfighters
by J. Patrick Lewis
A regiment of African American soldiers from Harlem journeys across the Atlantic to fight alongside the French in World War I, inspiring a continent with their brand of jazz music.
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The Black History of the White House
by Clarence Lusane
In this examination of the White House -- itself a microcosm of the nation's historical racial divide -- author Clarence Lusane reminds readers that ten presidents were slaveholders. He also illuminates the lives of many previously unknown but fascinating African Americans (like Blind Tom, famed as a musical prodigy during his time as a White House slave) as well as more famous figures. An authoritative survey of African Americans' roles there (including as president), The Black History of the White House delivers "a sweeping portrayal of changing historical tides at the White House" (Booklist).
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Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer
by Kenneth Walter Mack
Profiles African American lawyers during the era of segregation and the civil rights movement, with an emphasis on the conflicts they felt between their identities as African Americans and their professional identities as lawyers.
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The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America
by Louis P. Masur
Boston, April 5, 1976. As the city simmered with racial tension over forced school busing, newsman Stanley Forman hurried to City Hall to photograph that day’s protest, arriving just in time to snap the image that his editor would title “The Soiling of Old Glory.” T he photo made headlines across the United States and won Forman his second Pulitzer Prize. It shocked Boston, and America: Racial strife had not ended with the 1960s, it was alive and well in the cradle of liberty. Louis P. Masur’s evocative “biography of a photograph” unpacks this arresting image in a tour de force of historical writing.
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Frederick Douglass
by William S. McFeely
Probes beneath the public image of this important national leader to reveal a complex portrait of the man who exposed the brutal injustice of slavery and spoke loudly and clearly for the cause of freedom.
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At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
by Danielle L. McGuire
In this groundbreaking book, Danielle McGuire writes about Recy Taylor, a young black mother who was raped by seven armed white men and left for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator to Abbeville. Her name was Rosa Parks. In taking on this case, Parks launched a movement that ultimately changed the world. The author gives us the never-before-told history of how the civil rights movement began; how it was in part started in protest against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men who used economic intimidation, sexual violence, and terror to derail the freedom movement; and how those forces persisted unpunished throughout the Jim Crow era. Black women’s protests against sexual assault fueled civil rights campaigns throughout the South that began during World War II and went through to the Black Power movement. The Montgomery bus boycott was the baptism, not the birth, of that struggle.
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Black Hoops: The History of African-Americans in Basketball
by Fredrick McKissack
Surveys the history of African Americans in basketball, from the beginning of the sport to the present, discussing individual teams and players and the integration of the NBA. By the co-author of Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Baseball Leagues.
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Remember: The Journey to School Integration
by Toni Morrison
A fictional tale based on factual events captures the spirit, sadness, and struggle of the time as children tell what it was like to live during the era of school desegregation, enhanced with period photos.
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Black Freedom Fighters in Steel: The Struggle for Democratic Unionism
by Ruth Needleman
Thousands of African Americans poured into northwest Indiana in the 1920s dreaming of decent-paying jobs and a life without Klansmen, chain gangs, and cotton. This book tells the story of five men born in the South who migrated north for a chance to work the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the steel mills. Individually they fought for equality and justice; collectively they helped construct economic and union democracy in postwar America. It focuses on the decisive role of African American leaders in building interracial unionism.
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We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
by Kadir Nelson
The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the twentieth century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions, and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball. Using an “Everyman” player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. Illustrations from oil paintings by artist Kadir Nelson.
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Ain't Nothing but a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry
by Scott Reynolds Nelson
Who was the real John Henry? The story of this legendary African American figure has come down to us in so many songs, stories, and plays, that the facts are often lost. Historian Scott Nelson brings John Henry alive for young readers in his personal quest for the true story of the man behind the myth. Nelson presents the famous folk song as a mystery to be unraveled, identifying the embedded clues within the lyrics, which he examines to uncover many surprising truths. Nelson’s narrative is multilayered, interweaving the story of the building of the railroads, the period of Reconstruction, folk tales, American mythology, and an exploration of the tradition of work songs and their evolution into blues and rock and roll. This is also the story of the author’s search for the flesh-and-blood man who became an American folk hero.
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The Norton Anthology of African American Literature
by Henry Louis Gates
An anthology of the work of 120 writers spanning two centuries, this book covers the earliest known work by an African American, Lucy Terry's poem "Bars Fight", to the writing of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, and Poet Laureate Rita Dove. It begins with blues, gospel, spirituals, rap, sermons, prayers, testimonies and speeches, and continues with writing of all genres: poetry, short fiction, novels, drama, autobiography, journals and letters, including the full text of 11 major works.
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Notable African American Writers
by Salem Press
Profiles eighty African American writers, including such authors as Maya Angelou and Al Young, providing analysis of each writer's themes and listing each author's works, awards, and biographical information.
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Notable Black American Men
by Jessie Carney Smith
.Provides biographical information on five hundred African American men who were pioneers, entrepreneurs, artists, reformers, leaders, officials, educators, or significant figures in other fields over three centuries
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Notable Black American Women
by Jessie Carney Smith
Provides brief biographies of African American women who were business executives, writers, journalists, lawyers, physicians, actresses, singers, musicians, artists, educators, religious leaders, civil rights activists, politicians, aviators, athletes, and scientists.
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Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol
by Nell Irvin Painter
Sojourner Truth: ex-slave and fiery abolitionist, figure of imposing physique, riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became a national symbol for strong black women--indeed, for all strong women. Inspired by religion, Truth transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella into an itinerant pentecostal preacher; her words of empowerment have inspired black women and poor people the world over to this day.
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Framing the Black Panthers: The Spectacular Rise of a Black Power Icon
by Jane Rhodes
In Framing the Black Panthers, cultural historian Jane Rhodes examines the extraordinary staying power of the Panthers in the American imagination by probing their relationship to the media. Rhodes argues that once the media and pop culture latched onto the small, militant group, the Panthers became adept at exploiting and manipulating this coverage—through pamphlets, buttons, posters, ubiquitous press appearances, and photo ops—pioneering a sophisticated version of mass media activism. Paradoxically, the news media participated in the government campaign to eradicate the Panthers while simultaneously elevating them to a celebrity status that remains long after their demise.
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No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington
by Condoleezza Rice
The former national security adviser and Secretary of State offers the story of her eight years serving at the highest levels of government, including the difficult job she faced in the wake of 9/11. A native of Birmingham, Alabama who overcame the racism of the Civil Rights era to become a brilliant academic and expert on foreign affairs, Rice served as the chief adviser to George W. Bush on national-security issues. With the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Rice found herself at the center of the Administration’s intense efforts to keep America safe. In 2005 Rice was charged with helping to shape and carry forward the President’s foreign policy as Secretary of State.
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Roy Wilkins: The Quiet Revolutionary and the NAACP
by Yvonne Ryan
Roy Wilkins (1901-1981) spent forty-six years of his life serving the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and led the organization for more than twenty years. Under his leadership, the NAACP spearheaded efforts that contributed to landmark civil rights legislation, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Yvonne Ryan offers the first biography of this influential activist, as well as an analysis of his significant contributions to civil rights in America. While activists in Alabama were treading the highways between Selma and Montgomery, Wilkins was walking the corridors of power in Washington, D.C., working tirelessly in the background to ensure that the rights they fought for were protected through legislation and court rulings. With his command of congressional procedure and networking expertise, Wilkins was regarded as a strong and trusted presence on Capitol Hill, and received greater access to the Oval Office than any other civil rights leader during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.
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On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier: Biographies of African Americans in the U.S. Army, 1866-1917
by Frank N. Schubert
Presents carefully documented biographical information on thousands of black servicemen, giving the researcher not only glimpses of individual lives but also documentation of the variety of African-American experiences within and outside the army. Dr. Frank N. Schubert has combed both official military reports and unofficial documents in seeking information on 'buffalo soldiers' (as African Americans who served in the U.S. Army were commonly called). His sources include annual reports of the secretary of war, weekly papers serving black audiences, the journal of the NAACP, and Veterans Administration files. The data he uncovered for this work include dates and places of birth, details of service and retirement, occupations prior to and following military service, commendations for bravery, 'character,' unusual causes of death, and circumstances prior to emancipation.
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A Dream Deferred: The Jim Crow Era
by Anne Wallace Sharp
Discusses the racism that ran rampant in the United States after the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws that were instituted in the South as a reaction to this racism, and the fight against these laws and to end discrimination.
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; and have helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping. Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Follow along on a journey from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to laboratories with freezers full of HeLa cells; from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells.
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Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality
by Richard Slotkin
During the bloodiest days of World War I, no soldiers served more valiantly than the African American troops of the 369th Infantry--the fabled Harlem Hellfighters--and the legendary 77th "lost battalion" composed of New York City immigrants. Though these men had lived up to their side of the bargain as loyal American soldiers, the country to which they returned solidified laws and patterns of social behavior that had stigmatized them as second-class citizens. Both a riveting combat narrative and a social history, Lost Battalions delivers a richly detailed account of the fierce fight for equality in the shadow of a foreign war.
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My Grandfather's Son
by Clarence Thomas
My Grandfather's Son is the story of the remarkable and controversial leader, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words. Thomas was born in rural Georgia into a life marked by poverty and hunger. At age seven, Thomas and his six-year-old brother were sent to live with his mother's father, Myers Anderson, and her stepmother in their Savannah home. It was a move that would forever change Thomas's life. Thomas witnessed his grandparents' perseverance despite injustices, their hopefulness despite bigotry, and their deep love for their country. His own quiet determination would propel him to Holy Cross and Yale Law School, and eventually—despite a bitter, highly contested public confirmation—to the highest court in the land.
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Listen, Whitey!: The Sounds of Black Power, 1965-1975
by Patrick O. Thomas
Noted music producer and scholar Pat Thomas spent five years in Oakland, CA researching Listen, Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975. While befriending members of the Black Panther Party, Thomas discovered rare recordings of speeches, interviews, and music by noted activists Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown, The Lumpen and many others that form the framework of this definitive retrospective. Listen, Whitey! also chronicles the forgotten history of Motown Records.
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Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century
by Emma Lou Thornbrough
In this sequel to The Negro in Indiana before 1900, black history expert Thornbrough chronicles the growth of African Americans in a northern state that was notable for its anti-black tradition. She shows the effects of the Great Migration to work in war industries, linking the growth of the black community to the increased segregation of the 1920s and demonstrating how World War II marked a turning point in the movement in Indiana to expand the civil rights of African Americans. She describes the impact of the national civil rights movement on Indiana, as young activists, both black and white, challenged segregation and racial injustice in many aspects of daily life. The final chapter by Lana Ruegamer explores ways that black identity was affected by new access to education, work, and housing after 1970, demonstrating gains and losses from integration.
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The Negro in Indiana before 1900: A Study of a Minority
by Emma Lou Thornbrough
A pioneering history of African Americans in a northern state from their first arrival in the eighteenth century, this classic study covers their developing legal and economic status, efforts against white racism, and the founding of distinctive African American institutions: fraternal, social, and charitable organizations; churches; schools. An epilogue surveys developments in the twentieth century.
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Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
by Mamie Till-Mobley
Mamie Till-Mobley was an ordinary African American woman raising her son, Emmett, in Chicago. In August 1955, Emmett was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two white men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a white woman in a convenience store. His mother began her career of activism when she insisted on an open-casket viewing of her son’s gruesomely disfigured body. More than a hundred thousand people attended the service. The trial of J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, accused of kidnapping and murdering Emmett, was considered the first full-scale media event of the civil rights movement. What followed altered the course of this country’s history, and it was all set in motion by the sheer will, determination, and courage of Mamie Till-Mobley.
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Fort Mose: And the Story of the Man Who Built the First Free Black Settlement in Colonial America
by Glennette Tilley Turner
In this historical picture book, author Glennette Tilley Turner tells the story of Fort Mose, which was founded in St. Augustine, Florida, and was the first free African settlement to legally exist in what later became the United States. Established in 1738, Fort Mose gave sanctuary to escaped Africans, challenging slavery in the English colonies. Approximately one hundred Africans lived together, creating a frontier community that drew on a range of African backgrounds, blending them with those of Spanish, Native American, and English people and cultural traditions. Fort Mose was also the most southern link of the Underground Railroad.
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The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves
by Andrew Ward
In The Slaves’ War, historian Andrew Ward delivers a vision of the nation’s bloodiest conflict woven together from hundreds of interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs. This is a narrative of the Civil War as seen from not only battlefields, but from slave quarters, kitchens, roadsides, and fields as well. Speaking in a quintessentially American language, body servants, army cooks, runaways, and gravediggers bring the war to life. From slaves’ theories about the causes of the Civil War to their frank assessments of such major figures as Lincoln, Davis, Lee, and Grant; from their searing memories of the carnage of battle to their often startling attitudes toward masters and liberators alike; and from their initial jubilation at the Yankee invasion of the South to the crushing disappointment of freedom’s promise unfulfilled, The Slaves’ War is an engrossing chronicle of America’s Second Revolution.
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Black Women Scientists in the United States
by Wini Warren
Illuminates the scientific contributions, struggles, strategies, and triumphs of black women scientists. Drawn heavily from primary sources, Warren's original reference guide includes biographies of more than 100 scientists in fields from anatomy and mathematics to psychology and zoology.
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The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow
by Donnie Williams
The heroism of those involved in the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott is presented here in poignant and thorough detail. The untold stories of those, both black and white, whose lives were forever changed by the boycott are shared. In the end, the boycott brought Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr to prominence and improved the lives of all black Americans. This behind-the-scenes examination details the history of violence and abuse on the city buses. A look at Martin Luther King, Jr's trial, an examination of how black and white lawyers worked together to overturn segregation in the courtroom, and firsthand accounts from the segregationists who bombed the homes of some of Montgomery's most progressive ministers are included.
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Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965
by Juan Williams
Eyes on the Prize tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Companion book to the critically acclaimed documentary and award winner.
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This Day in Civil Rights History
by Randall Williams
This Day in Civil Rights History, by renowned civil-rights activist Randall Williams, is a day-by-day survey of the people, places, and events that impacted the civil rights movement and shaped the future of the United States. Flip to any date and you’ll find fascinating, informative facts and anecdotes.
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The African American Experience During World War II
by Neil A. Wynn
Wynn examines the World War II period within the broader context of the New Deal era of the 1930s and the Cold War of the 1950s, concluding that the war years were neither simply a continuation of earlier developments nor a prelude to later change. Rather, this period was characterized by an intense transformation of black hopes and expectations, encouraged by real socio-economic shifts and departures in federal policy. Black self consciousness at a national level found powerful expression in new movements. As the nation played a new world role in the developing Cold War, the tensions between America's stated beliefs and actual practices emphasized these issues and brought new forces into play.
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The Man from Essence: Creating a Magazine for Black Women
by Edward Lewis
The co-founder of Essence describes the family work ethic that inspired his rise from a violent South Bronx youth to one of the nation's most respected magazine publishers, describing his Civil Rights-era education, relationship with co-founder Clarence Smith and most memorable career challenges.
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Barack Obama: The Story
by David Maraniss
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of They Marched Into Sunlight draws on hundreds of interviews and written sources to present a richly textured account of the 44th President and the forces that shaped his character and beliefs, tracing the experiences of family members before his birth through his entry into politics.
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X
The account of this complex, controversial, and charismatic leader of the sixties' black revolution. Features a probing epilogue by the late Alex Haley.
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African American Lives
by Henry Louis Gates
A definitive biographical resource provides up-to-date, authoritative portraits of some six hundred noteworthy African Americans representing a wide variety of fields of endeavor, including slaves and abolitionists, writers, politicians, artists, business leaders, musicians, performers, athletes, journalists, and other historical figures.
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Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
This book presents the stories of 10 African-American men from different eras in American history, organized chronologically to provide a scope from slavery to the modern day. Illustrated by a two-time Caldecott Honor winner and multiple Coretta Scott King Book Award recipient.
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044
http://mclib.org/
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