African American Resources: Culture

Covering everything from sports to art, religion, music, and entrepreneurship, this title documents the vast array of African American cultural expressions and discusses their impact on the culture of the United States. It includes subject matter that ranges from how African culture was preserved during slavery hundreds of years ago to the richness and complexity of African American culture in the post-Obama era.

Drawing on interviews with mothers and their daughters, as well as compelling medical data, Berger provides insight into the larger patterns that place Black women at such high risk on a national level. She shows how Black mothers communicate with their daughters about health, sexuality, and intimacy, including how they attempt to promote healthy living standards even as they navigate widespread, systemic challenges. Ultimately, Berger highlights the important role that family--and specifically, the relationship between mothers and daughters--plays in improving public health outcomes.

"Library of America presents a classic novel of the Harlem Renaissance: Wallace Thurman's anguished, provocative look at prejudice and exclusion in Jazz Age Harlem.The Blacker the Berry (1929), Wallace Thurman's debut novel, broke new ground as an exploration of issues of “colorism,” intra-racial prejudice, and internalized racism in African American life."

The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the civil rights movement—a harrowing account of black life in the rural South and a powerful affirmation of one person's ability to affect change. Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation's destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement.

"From traditional media of painting and artists such as Horace Pippin and Faith Ringgold, to photography of Gordon Parks, and new media of Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear (installation art), the African American experience is reflected across generations and works."

Includes a chronology placing pivotal events—such as the beginning of black baseball, the modern Civil Rights Movement, and the Harlem Renaissance—in historical context• Depicts key places, events, and people through photographs as well as words• Provides a list of black radio programs and movies.

Surveys the world of African American women writers. Included are alphabetically arranged entries on more than 150 novelists, poets, playwrights, short fiction writers, autobiographers, essayists, and influential scholars. The Encyclopedia covers established contemporary authors such as Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor, along with a range of neglected and emerging figures.

A collection of essays in which Langston Hughes comments on contemporary issues of his time.

Du Bois argued that blacks should fully develop their talents, and should have the opportunity to earn college degrees.

"Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. “[Lorde's] works will be important to those truly interested in growing up sensitive, intelligent, and aware.”—The New York Times"

"In this founding work in the literature of black protest, Du Bois eloquently affirms that it is beneath the dignity of a human being to beg for those rights that belong inherently to all mankind. He also charges that the strategy of accommodation to white supremacy would only serve to perpetuate black oppression."

Elaine Brown assumed her role as the first and only female leader of the Black Panther Party with these words: "I have all the guns and all the money. I can withstand challenge from without and from within. Am I right, Comrade?"

A blend of social commentary, biography, and intellectual history, Until I Am Free is a manifesto for anyone committed to social justice. The book challenges us to listen to a working-poor and disabled Black woman activist and intellectual of the civil rights movement as we grapple with contemporary concerns around race, inequality, and social justice. Despite her limited material resources and the myriad challenges she endured as a Black woman living in poverty in Mississippi, Hamer committed herself to making a difference in the lives of others. In these pages, Hamer's words and ideas take center stage, allowing us all to hear the activist's voice and deeply engage her words, as though we had the privilege to sit right beside her.

This collection includes the following: The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel, The Souls of Black Folk, The Talented Tenth, The Conservation of Races, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638 -1870, The Negro, The Negro in the South (co-written by Booker T. Washington), and Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil.

"An inspiring collection of essays by black women writers, curated by the founder of the popular book club Well-Read Black Girl, on the importance of recognizing ourselves in literature. "

"Defines the visual arts in order that they may assume their rightful place alongside African American music, literature and folklore as cultural expressions that have helped to give American culture its distinct character."

This biography will take the reader back in time to listen and see through the eyes of Amelia Boynton Robinson what it was like to live in the Black Belt in the city of Selma and Dallas County rural areas during the Jim Crow era. Boynton Robinson's distinguished efforts in Selma, specifically related to planning and participating in the historic 1965 March from Selma to Montgomery, has earned for her the designated and honorary title: Matriarch of the Voting Rights Movement.

"In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement"

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men -- bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion.

The African diaspora - a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism - has generated a wide array of artistic achievements in our century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. This study of 20th-century black art is the first to concentrate on the art works themselves and on how these works, created during a period of major social upheaval and transformation, use black culture both as subject and as contextual basis.

The author relates his life as an African American growing up in the South during the Jim Crow years.

Presents a comprehensive history of African-American performers spanning sixty years and profiles the lives and careers of famous entertainers such as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Hattie McDaniel, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Jr., and many more.

"Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named 'post-race' society."

"After a black drug dealer goes to jail in Brooklyn, his ruthless 17-year-old daughter takes over his empire. A look at the mores and manners of the black underclass, this one with money. First novel by a hip-hop artist, author of No Disrespect."

In 1925, Zora Neale Hurston was living in New York as a fledgling writer. This collection of stories, found in archives after her death, reveal African American folk culture in Harlem in the 1920s.

A compilation of writings by early twentieth-century African-American author Langston Hughes, including excerpts from novels and autobiographies, short stories, plays, poems, songs, and essays.

"Examining the complexities of the problems of black youths from an insider's perspective, an African-American journalist recalls his own troubled childhood, his rehabilitation while in prison, and his successful Washington Post career."

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright's novel is just as powerful today as when it was written -- in its reflection of poverty and hopelessness, and what it means to be black in America.

Begins by examining the concept of "Post-Blackness," a term that defines artists who are proud to be Black but don't want to be limited by identity politics and boxed in by race. He soon discovers that the desire to be rooted in but not constrained by Blackness is everywhere.