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Spotlight on Black History |
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A Black Women's History of the United States
by Daina Ramey Berry
New Non-Fiction, 305.48896. Two award-winning history professors and authors focus on the stories of African-American women slaves, civilians, religious leaders, artists, queer icons, activists and criminals in a celebration of Black womanhood that demonstrates its indelible role in shaping America.
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Black History for Beginners
by Denise Dennis
Non-Fiction, 305.896073. 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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The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
by Henry Louis Gates
Non-Fiction, 305.896073. A companion to the six-part documentary of the same name chronicles 500 years of African-American history from the origins of slavery on the African continent through Barack Obama's second presidential term, examining contributing political and cultural events while tracing the significant influence of eminent historical figures.
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The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea
by Christopher J Lebron
Non-Fiction, 305.896073. Started in the wake of George Zimmerman's 2013 acquittal in the death of Trayvon Martin, the #BlackLivesMatter movement has become a powerful and uncompromising campaign demanding redress for the brutal and unjustified treatment of Black bodies by law enforcement in the United States. The Making of Black Lives Matter presents a condensed and accessible intellectual history that traces the genesis of the ideas that have built into the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Drawing on the work of revolutionary Black public intellectuals, including Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Langston Hughes, Zora Neal Hurston, Anna Julia Cooper, Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King Jr., Lebron clarifies what it means to assert that "Black Lives Matter" when faced with contemporary instances of anti-Black law enforcement. He also illuminates the crucial difference between the problem signaled by the social media hashtag and how we think that we ought to address the problem.
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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
Non-Fiction, 323.1196073. 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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NAACP: Celebrating a Century; 100 Years in Pictures
by National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
Non-Fiction, 323.1196073. Enhanced by hundreds of photographs, chronicles the one-hundred-year history of America's oldest, largest, and most important civil rights organization.
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Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965
by Juan Williams
Non-Fiction, 323.1196073. 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
Non-Fiction, 323.1196073. 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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Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer
by Kenneth Walter Mack
Non-Fiction, 340. 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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Buffalo Soldiers: African American Troops in the US Forces, 1866-1945
by Ron Field
Non-Fiction, 355.308996. 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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Fighting for Uncle Sam: Buffalo Soldiers in the Frontier Army
by John P. Langellier
Non-Fiction, 355.008996. From the American Revolution to the present day, African Americans have stepped forward in their nation’s defense. This book breathes new vitality into a stirring subject, emphasizing the role men who have come to be known as “buffalo soldiers” played in opening the Trans-Mississippi West. This concise overview reveals a cast of characters as big as the land they served.
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Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America
by Mamie Till-Mobley
Non-Fiction, 364.134. 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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The Blood of Emmett Till
by Timothy B Tyson
Non-Fiction, 364.134. Draws on previously untapped firsthand testimonies and recovered court transcripts to present a scholarly account of the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till and its role in launching the civil rights movement. By the award-winning author of Blood Done Sign My Name.
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A Forgotten Sisterhood: Pioneering Black Women Educators and Activists in the Jim Crow South
by Audrey T. McCluskey
Non-Fiction, 370.922. Emerging from the darkness of the slave era and Reconstruction, Black activist women Lucy Craft Laney, Mary McLeod Bethune, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Nannie Helen Burroughs founded schools aimed at liberating African-American youth from disadvantaged futures in the segregated and decidedly unequal South. From the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries, these individuals fought discrimination as members of a larger movement of Black women who uplifted future generations through a focus on education, social service, and cultural transformation. Laney, Bethune, Brown, and Burroughs built off each other’s successes and learned from each other’s struggles as administrators, lecturers, and suffragists. Drawing from the women’s own letters and writings about educational methods and from remembrances of surviving students, Audrey Thomas McCluskey reveals the pivotal significance of this sisterhood’s legacy for later generations and for the institution of education itself.
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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
Non-Fiction, 616.02774. 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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The Black Calhouns: From Civil War to Civil Rights With One African American Family
by Gail Lumet Buckley
Non-Fiction, 929.20973. The daughter of actress Lena Horne traces the story of her family between two major human rights periods in America, sharing the stories of her house-slave-turned-businessman ancestor, the branches of her family that lived in the North and South and their experiences during the Jim Crow and wartime eras.
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100 Amazing Facts about the Negro
by Henry Louis Gates
Non-Fiction, 973.0496. In an homage to Joel Augustus Rogers' 1957 work, Henry Louis Gates Jr. relies on the latest scholarship to offer an overview of African, diasporic and African-American history in Q-and-A format.
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The Handy African American History Answer Book
by Jessie Carney Smith
Non-Fiction, 973.0496. Walking readers through a rich but often overlooked part of American history, this compendium addresses the people, times, and events that influenced and changed African American history. An overview of major biographical figures and history-making events is followed by a deeper look at the development in the arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, music, government, journalism, religion, science, sports, and more.
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The Original Black Elite: Daniel Murray and the Story of a Forgotten Era
by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
Non-Fiction. In this outstanding cultural biography, the author of the New York Times bestseller A Slave in the White House chronicles a critical yet overlooked chapter in American history: the inspiring rise and calculated fall of the Black elite, from Emancipation through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow Era—embodied in the experiences of an influential figure of the time, academic, entrepreneur, and political activist and Black history pioneer Daniel Murray.
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The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
by Annette Gordon-Reed
Non-Fiction, 973.46. 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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The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves
by Andrew Ward
Non-Fiction, 973.711. Interweaving hundreds of interviews with excerpts from diaries, letters, and memoirs, a narrative history of the American Civil War captures the story of the conflict from the perspective of the African-American slaves who played a role, documenting the carnage of the battlefield, assessment of the military leaders of both sides, attitudes toward masters and liberators alike, and more.
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The Butler: A Witness to History
by Wil Haygood
Non-Fiction, 973.92. 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 Black History of the White House
by Clarence Lusane
Non-Fiction, 975.3. 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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Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century
by Emma Lou Thornbrough
Non-Fiction, 977.2. 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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Autobiographies
by Frederick Douglass
Biography, DOUGLASS. The great American reformer of the nineteenth century recounts his life from a slave to a leader in the movements for emancipation and Black labor.
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The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Martin Luther King
Biography, KING. Celebrated Stanford University historian Clayborne Carson is the director and editor of the Martin Luther King Papers Project; with thousands of King's essays, notes, letters, speeches, and sermons at his disposal, Carson has organized King's writings into a posthumous autobiography. The autobiography delves into the philosophical training King received at Morehouse College, Crozer Theological Seminary, and Boston University, where he consolidated the teachings of Afro-American theologian Benjamin Mays with the philosophies of Locke, Rousseau, Gandhi, and Thoreau. Through King's voice, the reader intimately shares in his trials and triumphs, including the Montgomery Boycott, the 1963 "I Have a Dream Speech," the Selma March, and the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize.
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My Life, My Love, My Legacy
by Coretta Scott King
Biography, KING. The wife of Martin Luther King Jr., founder of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change and singular 20th-century American civil rights activist presents her full life story, as told before her death to one of her closest confidants.
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Solomon Northup: The Complete Story of the Author of Twelve Years a Slave
by David Fiske
Biography, NORTHUP. 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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A Promised Land
by Barack Obama
New Biography, OBAMA. In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency--a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
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The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
by Jeanne Theoharis
Biography, PARKS. Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who, with a single act, birthed the modern civil rights movement, Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks’s politics and years of activism. She shows readers how this civil rights movement radical sought—for more than a half a century—to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice.
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Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
by Catherine Clinton
Biography, TUBMAN. A definitive full-scale biography of the legendary fugitive slave turned "conductor" on the Underground Railroad describes Tubman's youth in the antebellum South, her escape to Philadelphia, her successful efforts to liberate slaves, and her work as a scout, spy, and nurse for the Union Army during the Civil War.
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She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman
by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Biography, TUBMAN. Explores the complexities and achievements of iconic abolitionist Harriet Tubman, combining rare commentary with new and public-domain photographs to offering modern insights into Tubman’s role in the Civil War, suffrage and emancipation.
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Up from History: The Life of Booker T. Washington
by Robert J. Norrell
Biography, WASHINGTON. A definitive biography of Booker T. Washington focuses on his efforts to support the cause of Black people in the segregated South by promoting an economic independence and development of moral character in order to integrate Black people into American life and to overcome exploitation and discrimination.
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X
Biography, X. In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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A Child's Introduction to African American History
by Jabari Asim
J Non-Fiction. A fact-filled history of African Americans in politics, activism, sports, entertainment and other disciplines traces the slave trade and abolitionist movement through the Civil Rights era and the creation of hip-hop.
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#BlackLivesMatter: Protesting Racism
by Rachael L Thomas
J Non-Fiction, 305.896073. In this title, readers learn about the #BlackLivesMatter movement, from the history of slavery and racism, to the slayings of Travon Martin and Michael Brown, to further efforts to end racism such as Campaign Zero, and #takeaknee, and Black Futures Lab.
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Heroes for Civil Rights
by David A. Adler
J Non-Fiction, 323.092. 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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Black Hoops: The History of African-Americans in Basketball
by Fredrick McKissack
J Non-Fiction, 796.323. 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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The Great Migration: Journey to the North
by Eloise Greenfield
J Non-Fiction, 811.54. 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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Pathfinders: The Journeys of 16 Extraordinary Black Souls
by Tonya Bolden
J Non-Fiction, 920.009296. The Coretta Scott King Honor-winning author of Beautiful Moon presents a tribute to 16 diverse Americans of African descent who helped define history in the 18th through 20th centuries, including Allen Allensworth, Sissieretta Jones and Maggie Lena Walker.
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The Tuskegee Airmen
by Sarah De Capua
J Non-Fiction, 940.544973. 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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Ain't Nothing But a Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry
by Scott Reynolds Nelson
J Non-Fiction, 973.0496. Combining the story of the building of the railroads, the period of Reconstruction, folk tales, American mythology, and the tradition of work songs with his own personal quest, a renowned historian unravels the mystery surrounding the legendary African-American figure.
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Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America
by Andrea Davis Pinkney
J Non-Fiction, 973.0496. 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. Backmatter includes a Civil Rights timeline, sources and further reading. Illustrated by a two-time Caldecott Honor winner and multiple Coretta Scott King Book Award recipient.
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Discovering Black America: From the Age of Exploration to the Twenty-First Century
by Linda Tarrant-Reid
J Non-Fiction, 973.0496. Traces more than four centuries of African-American history against a backdrop of national and world events, drawing on personal journals, interviews and archival materials to document times ranging from the Colonial period and slavery through the Civil War and the Civil Rights era.
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Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America
by Tonya Bolden
J Non-Fiction, 976.684. 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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Martin Luther King Jr.: Civil Rights Leader
by Robert E. Jakoubek
J Biography, KING. A critically acclaimed biography series of history's most notable African Americans includes straightforward and objective writing combined with important memorabilia and photographs.
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The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch
by Chris Barton
J Biography, LYNCH. A comprehensive introduction to the life and achievements of one of the country's first African-American congressmen describes his experiences as a child slave and his post-Emancipation rise as a justice of the peace.
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Nat Turner: Slave Revolt Leader
by Terry Bisson
J Biography, TURNER. Presents the life and times of the African American preacher who led a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831, believing that God wanted him to free the slaves.
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Michigan City Public Library
100 E. 4th Street
Michigan City, Indiana 46360
219-873-3044mclib.org/ |
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