African American Resources: History

"An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a bottom-up history told from the viewpoint of African American and Latinx activists and revealing the radically different ways people of the diaspora addressed issues still plaguing the United States today."

A VERY limited statement of the argument for impartial suffrage, and for including the negro in the body politic, would require more space than can be reasonably asked here. It is supported by reasons as broad as the nature of man, and as numerous as the wants of society. Man is the only government making animal in the world. His right to a participation in the production and operation of government is an inference from his nature, as direct and self evident as is his right to acquire property or education.

"In this ambitious work, first published in 1983, Cedric Robinson demonstrates that efforts to understand black people's history of resistance solely through the prism of Marxist theory are incomplete and inaccurate."

Documents the Black Power Movement by its cultural representation and promotion of self-determination and self-defense, and showcases the movement's influence on Black communities in America from 1965 to the mid-1970s.

A collection of primary source materials that give readers a look at the civil rights movement through the eyes of those who lived it. 16 short sidebar essays that highlight important personalities and events in the history of the civil rights movement.

"Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies."

Official history of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Tracing the struggle for freedom and civil rights across two centuries, this anthology comprises speeches by Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other influential figures in the history of African-American culture and politics.

"The Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists, was one of the most important organizations to develop out of the anti-racist and women's liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s. In this collection, founding members of the organization and contemporary activists reflect on the legacy of its contributions to black feminism and its impact on today's struggles."

Examines case-based evidence of the court's longstanding racial bias (often under the guise of "states rights") to reveal how that prejudice has allowed the court to solidify its position as arguably the most powerful branch of the federal government.

An intimate portrait of Trayvon Martin shares previously untold insights into the movement he inspired from the perspectives of his parents, who also describe their efforts to bring meaning to his short life through the movement's pursuit of redemption and justice.

"Through a reexamination of the earliest struggles against Jim Crow, Blair Kelley exposes the fullness of African American efforts to resist the passage of segregation laws dividing trains and streetcars by race in the early Jim Crow era."

Easy-to-read, compelling text explores the events of March 3, 1991, when a high-speed car chase ended in King's beating, the significance of the video tape of the beating, the officers' trials, and the riots that followed their acquittal in May 1992.

Up from Slavery is one of the most influential biographies ever written. On one level it is the life story of Booker T. Washington and his rise from slavery to accomplished educator and activist. On another level it the story of how an entire race strove to better itself.

The Voting Rights War tells the story of the courageous struggle to achieve voting equality through more than one hundred years of work by the NAACP at the Supreme Court. Readers take the journey for voting rights from slavery to the Plessy v. Ferguson case that legalized segregation in 1896 through today's conflicts around voter suppression. This book highlights the challenges facing American voters, especially African Americans, the brave work of NAACP members, and the often contentious relationship between the NAACP and the Supreme Court. The Voting Rights War follows conflicts on the ground and in the courtroom, from post-slavery voting rights and the formation of the NAACP to its ongoing work to gain a basic right guaranteed to every citizen. Whether through litigation, lobbying, or protest, the NAACP continues to play an unprecedented role in the battle for voting equality in America, fighting against prison gerrymandering, racial redistricting, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, and more

The first major historical anthology on how African American women helped shaped the West.

"Contrary to historical and popular depictions of African Americans as naturally religious, this study demonstrates the great diversity in black religious thought and makes an important contribution to our understanding of black intellectual history."

Educated and soft-spoken, John Howard Griffin changed only the color of his skin. It was enough to make him hated ... enough to nearly get him killed. His audacious, still chillingly relevant eyewitness history is a work about race and humanity every American should read.

This book offers a comprehensive gathering of Baldwin's nonfiction works that articulate issues of race, democracy, and American identity.

"This book incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation - the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments - that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that have continued into the twenty-first century."

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American.

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. The story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

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."

"Carter Godwin Woodson's seminal book exploring the structural and systemic features of American education that cause entrenched and perpetuated social segregation, economic disparity, and class distinctions among people of color and white citizens. Woodson's analysis has remained germane to modern times"

A history of the Black Power movement in the United States traces the origins and evolution of the influential movement and examines the ways in which Black Power redefined racial identity and culture.

Reviews the background of the 1963 civil rights demands, and describes the strategy of the Birmingham campaign and outlines what can be expected of future action.