LibGuides: Black History Research Guide: Finding Books

Finding Books

Books, eBooks, and other Library materials can be searched using the VVC Library Catalog. Search the catalog by Subject such as African American History. There are two main categories of books: general and reference. General books (located in the Library "Stacks" (lower/1st floor) can be checked out and are often used for more in-depth research. Reference books (upper/2nd floor) do not circulate, but are useful for finding subject/topic overviews.

Course Reserves/Textbooks

The Library maintains a collection of instructor reserve materials, textbooks, videos, and supplemental course materials that instructors have placed for student use in the Library, generally for a two-hour loan period. Reserve materials can be requested at the Reserves counter (2nd floor).

Search Library Catalog for Course Reserves/Textbooks: To find available Course Reserve/Textbook materials for History, for example, search Course Reserves /Textbooks in the Online Catalog. Search by Course Number, for example HIST 153, by the instructor's last name, or item title.

Photocopy and scanning machines are available in the Library (2nd floor). See What is Copyright link for copyright information.

A few selected Library reference titles for Black History literature, information, and research are listed below:

Selected Books - African Americans and the Arts

African American Art by Smithsonian American Art Museum Staff (Contribution by); Richard Powell; Virginia M. Mecklenburg
Call Number: N6538 .N5 S595 2012
Publication Date: 2012
A beautifully illustrated survey of African American art of the twentieth century, including many never-before-seen works by the most important artists of the period. African American Art presents a powerful selection of paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by forty-three black artists who explored the African American experience of the twentieth century. Embracing many universal themes and also evoking specific aspects of the African American experience such as the African diaspora, jazz, and the power of religion, the artists worked in styles as varied as documentary realism, abstraction, and postmodern assemblage of found objects.
Black Art by Richard J. Powell
Call Number: N6538 .N5 P64 2002
Publication Date: 2003
The African diaspora--a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade and Western colonialism--generated a wide array of artistic achievements in the past century, from blues to reggae, from the paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner to the video installations of Keith Piper. Richard Powell's study concentrates on the works of art themselves and on how these works, created during a time of major social upheaval and transformation, use black culture as both subject and context. Biographies of more than 170 key artists provide a unique art-historical reference. Placing its emphasis on black cultural themes rather than on black racial identity, this groundbreaking book is an important exploration of the visual representations of black culture throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
The visual blues by Louisiana State University
Call Number: N6538 .N5 V56 2014
Publication Date: 2014
The visual blues explores the enormous impact that blues and jazz music emanating from the Deep South and moving north had on artists associated with the Harlem Renaissance. The Visual Blues shows how the artists and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance blurred artistic boundaries, drawing inspiration from each other and contributing to each other's art forms.

Selected Books

100 Most Popular African American Authors: Biographical Sketches and Bibliographies by Bernard A. Drew
Call Number: Ref. PS153 .N5 D74 2007
Publication Date: 2006
Here's a one stop resource, containing 100 profiles of your favorite contemporary African American writers, along with complete lists of their works. Focusing on writers who have made their mark in the past 25 years, this guide stresses African American writers of popular and genre literature, with a few classic literary giants also included.
The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones; Caitlin Roper (Editor); Ilena Silverman (Editor); Jake Silverstein (Editor)
Call Number: E441 .A15 2021
Publication Date: 2021
The New York Times Magazine's award-winning "1619 Project" issue reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on that work, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America. *Also available as an eBook
Abolition and Antislavery: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic by Peter Hinks (Editor); John McKivigan (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E449 .A148 2015
Publication Date: 2015
This reference work chronicles the campaign to end human slavery in the United States, bringing to life the key events, leading figures, and socioeconomic forces in the history of American antislavery, abolition, and emancipation.
African-American Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations by Omnigraphics (Managing editor); Angela L. Williams (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. GT4803.A2 A37 2019
Publication Date: 2019
African-American Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations, 2nd Edition presents the history, customs, symbols, and lore of more than 100 diverse holidays and festivals celebrated by Americans of African descent in the United States.
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience by Henry Louis Gates; Kwame Anthony Appiah
Call Number: Ref. DT14 .A37435 1999
Publication Date: 1999
Harvard scholars Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Kwame Anthony Appiah have created the first scholarly encyclopedia to take as its scope the entire history of Africa and the African Diaspora.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz (Contribution by)
Call Number: E184 .S75 O79 2018
Publication Date: 2018
An intersectional history of the shared struggle for African American and Latinx civil rights. Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United Statesis a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history arguing that the "Global South" was crucial to the development of America as we know it.
The African American Experience: Black History and Culture through Speeches, Letters, Editorials, Poems, Songs, and Stories by Kai Wright
Call Number: E184.6 .A33 2009
Publication Date: 2009
This collection of original documents on African American history and culture includes memoirs, speeches, songs, letters, and literary works by African American authors, along with laws, court opinions, and other materials on the subject.
African American History Macmillan Compendium by Macmillan Library Reference Staff; Jack Salzman (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185 .E542 1998 Vols. 1-5
Publication Date: 1998
A single-volume version of the five-volume Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. It provides an overview of the essential people, places, thoughts, ideas and statistics that comprise the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day.
Afro-Caribbean Religions: An Introduction to their Historical, Cultural, and Sacred Traditions by Nathaniel Samuel Murrell
Call Number: BL2565 .M87 2010
Publication Date: 2009
From Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santeria, to popular religions like Rastafari in Jamaica and Orisha-Shango of Trinidad and Tobago. Murrell provides a comprehensive study that respectfully traces the social, historical, and political contexts of these religions. Murrell includes a section on Candomble, Umbanda, Xango, and Batique.
Ancient Africa by Christopher Ehret
Call Number: DT14 .E35 2023
Publication Date: 2023
A panoramic narrative that places ancient Africa on the stage of world history This book brings together archaeological and linguistic evidence to provide a sweeping global history of ancient Africa, tracing how the continent played an important role in the technological, agricultural, and economic transitions of world civilization. Ehret takes up the problem of how we discuss Africa in the context of global history, combining results of multiple disciplines. He sheds light on the rich history of technological innovation by African societies--from advances in ceramics to cotton weaving and iron smelting--highlighting the important contributions of women as inventors and innovators. A monumental achievement by one of today's eminent scholars, Ancient Africa offers vital new perspectives on our shared past, explaining why we need to reshape our historical frameworks for understanding the ancient world as a whole.
Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston; Deborah G. Plant (Introduction by)
Call Number: E444 .L49 H87 2018
Publication Date: 2018
Tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade--abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history.
Becoming Ella Fitzgerald by Judith Tick
Call Number: 9780393241051
Publication Date: 2023
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996) possessed one of the twentieth century's most astonishing voices. In this first major biography since Fitzgerald's death, historian Judith Tick offers a sublime portrait of this ambitious risk-taker whose exceptional musical spontaneity made her a transformational artist. Breaking ground as a female bandleader, Fitzgerald refuted expectations of musical Blackness, deftly balancing artistic ambition and market expectations.
Biography of a Phantom by Robert "Mack" McCormick; John Troutman (Editor)
Call Number: ML420.J735 M33 2023
Publication Date: 2023
NEW YORK TIMES CRITICS' PICK OF 2023. When blues master Robert Johnson's little-known recordings were rereleased to great fanfare in the 1960s, little was known about his life, giving rise to legends that he gained success by selling his soul to the devil. While Johnson died before achieving widespread recognition, his music took on a life of its own and inspired future generations.
Black AF History by Michael Harriot
Call Number: E185 .H3695 2023
Publication Date: 2023-09-19
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America's backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory.
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Waldo E. Martin; Joshua Bloom
Call Number: E185.615 .B5574 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Black against Empire is the first comprehensive overview and analysis of the history and politics of the Black Panther Party. The authors analyze key political questions, such as why so many young black people across the country risked their lives for the revolution, why the Party grew most rapidly during the height of repression, and why allies abandoned the Party at its peak of influence.
The Black Cabinet by Jill Watts
Call Number: E807 .W36 2020
Publication Date: 2020
A magnificently researched, dramatically told work of narrative nonfiction about the history, evolution, impact, and ultimate demise of what was known in the 1930s and 1940s as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Black Cabinet.
The Black Church by Henry Louis Gates
Call Number: BR563.N4 G295 2021
Publication Date: 2021
Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today's political landscape. We emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative.
The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship by Deborah Willis
Call Number: E540.N3 W715 2021
Publication Date: 2021
In The Black Civil War Soldier, Deb Willis explores the crucial role of photography in (re)telling and shaping African American narratives of the Civil War, pulling from a dynamic visual archive that has largely gone unacknowledged. With over seventy images, The Black Civil War Soldier contains a huge breadth of primary and archival materials, many of which are rarely reproduced.
Black Folk by Blair Kelley
Call Number: HD8081.A65 K45 2023
Publication Date: 2023
In this brilliant corrective, Black Folk, acclaimed historian Blair LM Kelley restores the Black working class to the center of the American story. Spanning two hundred years--from one of Kelley's earliest known ancestors, an enslaved blacksmith, to the essential workers of the Covid-19 pandemic-. Black Folk highlights the lives of the laundresses, Pullman porters, domestic maids, and postal workers who established the Black working class as a force in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Black Futures by Kimberly Drew; Jenna Wortham
Call Number: CB235 .B595 2021
Publication Date: 2021
Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work-images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more-to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces.
Black Gun, Silver Star by Art T. Burton
Call Number: F697.R44 B87 2022
Publication Date: 2022
In The Story of Oklahoma, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves appears as the "most feared U.S. marshal in the Indian country." That Reeves was also an African American who had spent his early life enslaved in Arkansas and Texas made his accomplishments all the more remarkable. Black Gun, Silver Star sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late nineteenth-century America--and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era.
Black Power Encyclopedia by Karin L. Stanford (Editor); Jasmin A. Young (Editor); Akinyele Omowale Umoja (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185.615 .B546647 2018 Vols. 1-2
Publication Date: 2018
An invaluable resource that 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.
The Black Presidency by Michael Eric Dyson
Call Number: E185.615 .D9449 2016
Publication Date: 2016
A provocative and lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (Vanity Fair). Michael Eric Dyson explores the powerful, surprising way the politics of race have shaped Barack Obama's identity and groundbreaking presidency.
Black Punk Now by Chris L. Terry (Editor); James Spooner Spooner (Editor)
Call Number: ML3534.3 .B523 2023
Publication Date: 2023
Black Punk Now is an anthology of contemporary nonfiction, fiction, illustrations, and comics that collectively describe punk today and give punks - especially the Black ones - a wider frame of reference. Curated from the perspective of Black writers with connections to the world of punk, the collection mixes media as well as generations, creating a new reference point for music-lovers, readers, and historians by capturing the present and looking towards the future.
Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia by Darlene Clark Hine (Editor); Elsa B. Brown (Editor); Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185.86 .B542 1993 Vols.1-2
Publication Date: 1993
Provides 641 biographies and 163 topical essays discussing the important roles Black women have played in American history.
Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz by Benjamin Cawthra
Call Number: ML85 .C39 2011
Publication Date: 2011
Charting the development of jazz photography from the swing era of the 1930s to the rise of black nationalism in the '60s, Blue Notes in Black and White is a fascinating account of the partnership between two of the twentieth century's most innovative art forms. Benjamin Cawthra introduces us to the great jazz photographers and their struggles, hustles, styles, and creative visions.
Chronology of African American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present by Alton Hornsby (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185 .H64 1991
Publication Date: 1991
From the arrival in America of Pedro Alonzo Nino, identified as a black sailor on Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria, to recent events like L. Douglas Wilder's victory as the first elected black governor in United States history, this book chronicles the people, places, and events that have had a major impact on African-American history.
The Civil Rights Movement by Mark Grossman
Call Number: Ref. E185.61 .G895 1993
Publication Date: 1993
The ABC-CLIO Companion to the Civil Rights Movement traces the struggle of black Americans against oppression, racism, and bigotry in the United States. This expansive, one-volume encyclopedia is designed as an easy-to-use references tool for the general reader.
The Civil Rights Movement in America: From Black Nationalism to the Women's Political Council by Peter B. Levy (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185.61 .C6148 2015
Publication Date: 2015
This single-volume work provides a concise, up-to-date, and reliable reference work that students, teachers, and general readers can turn to for a comprehensive overview of the civil rights movement--a period of time incorporating events that shaped today's society.
Color Stories by JeffriAnne Wilder
Call Number: E185.625 .W5195 2015
Publication Date: 2015
This book offers an in-depth sociological exploration of present-day colorism in the lives of black women, investigating the lived experiences of a phenomenon that continues to affect women of African descent.
Daily Life of African American Slaves in the Antebellum South by Paul E. Teed; Melissa Ladd Teed
Call Number: E443 .T44 2020
Publication Date: 2020
This book covers the full spectrum of daily life among slaves in the Antebellum South, giving readers a more complete picture of slaves' experiences in the decades before emancipation. *Also available as an eBook
Defining Documents in American History: Civil Rights (1954-2015) by Salem Press Editors; Michael Shally-Jensen (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. KF4749 .C54 2015
Publication Date: 2015
Defining Documents in American History: Civil Rights offers in-depth analysis of a broad range of historical documents and historic events that shaped civil rights struggles in American history. This text closely studies more than forty primary source documents to deliver a thorough examination of civil rights movements in the US from 1954 to 2015. *Also available as an eBook
Defining Documents in American History: Slavery by Salem Press (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E441 .S54 2019 Vols. 1-2
Publication Date: 2019
The two-volume set includes in-depth chapters that provide a thorough commentary of significant primary source documents. *Also available as an eBook
Encyclopedia of African and African-American Religions by Stephen D. Glazier (Editor)
Call Number: BL2462.5 .E53 2001
Publication Date: 2001
This important new reference covers African and African-American religion in sub-Saharan Africa, North America, South America, and the Caribbean, and provides vital insights into its growing worldwide influence in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific.
Encyclopedia of the Black Arts by Verner D. Mitchell and Cynthia Davis
Call Number: NX 512.3 A35 E53 2019
Publication Date: 2019
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) encompassed a group of artists, musicians, novelists, and playwrights whose work combined innovative approaches to literature, film, music, visual arts, and theatre. In Encyclopedia of the Blacks Arts Movement, Mitchell and Davis have collected essays on the key figures of the movement.
Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad by J. Blaine Hudson
Call Number: Ref. E450 .H855 2006
Publication Date: 2006
From the Abolitionist Movement to the Zionville Baptist Missionary Church, this encyclopedia focuses on the people, ideas, events and places associated with the interrelated histories of fugitive slaves, the African American struggle for equality and the American antislavery movement. Information is drawn from primary sources such as public records, document collections, slave autobiographies and antebellum newspapers.
Florynce Flo Kennedy by Sherie M. Randolph
Call Number: KF373 .K45 R36 2015
Publication Date: 2015-10-05
Often photographed in a cowboy hat with her middle finger held defiantly in the air, Florynce "Flo" Kennedy (1916-2000) left a vibrant legacy as a leader of the Black Power and feminist movements. In the first biography of Kennedy, Sherie M. Randolph traces the life and political influence of this strikingly bold and controversial radical activist.
The Folly of Jim Crow: Rethinking the Segregated South by Stephanie Cole (Editor); Natalie J. Ring (Editor, Contribution by)
Call Number: E185.92 .F65 2012
Publication Date: 2012
This series undertakes a close review of both the history and the historiography of the Jim Crow South. The studies in this collection incorporate important perspectives that have developed during the past two decades among scholars interested in gender and politics, the culture of resistance, and "the hegemonic function of whiteness."
Free at Last by Sojourner Kincaid Rolle; Alex Bostic (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ7 .K65 Fre 2022
Publication Date: 2022-05-24
This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today. After 300 years of forced bondage; hands bound, descendants of Africa picked up their souls--all that they owned-- leaving shackles where they fell on the ground, headed for the nearest resting place to be found.
Great Events from History: African American History by Salem Press Editors (Editor); Kibibi Mack-Shelton (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. E185 .G74 2017 Vols. 1-3
Publication Date: 2017
This new resource provides comprehensive coverage of the many events that define the framework of African American history, including social, cultural, and political movements, and the struggles to gain freedom, equality and civil rights. *Also available as an eBook
The Harlem Renaissance: A Gale Critical Companion by Janet Witalec (Editor)
Call Number: Ref. PS153 .N5 H245 2003 Vols. 1-3
Publication Date: 2002
Harlem Renaissance, includes entries on the major topics, authors and works of the period complete with reprinted full-text literary criticism. Volume 1 features an introduction and a descriptive chronology of events and entries on five major topics related to the movement. Volumes 2 and 3 include 33 entries on the major literary figures and their works from the period.
How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance by Akiba Solomon; Kenrya Rankin
Call Number: E185.61 .H845 2019
Publication Date: 2019
Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight White supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.
Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom & Equality in the Twilight of Slavery by Joseph P. Reidy
Call Number: E441 .R35 2019
Publication Date: 2019
In this sweeping reappraisal of slavery's end during the Civil War era, Joseph P. Reidy employs the lenses of time, space, and individuals' sense of personal and social belonging to understand how participants and witnesses coped with drastic change, its erratic pace, and its unforeseeable consequences.
Illustrated Black History by George McCalman
Call Number: E185.96 .M44 2022
Publication Date: 2022
*AWARD WINNER* of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Debut Author / and the NCBR Recognition Award. A collection of original portraits that celebrates Black pioneers in politics, science, literature, music, and more--with biographical reflections. Each includes a drawing or painting by artist George McCalman, along with an insightful essay.
Jim Crow: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosiac by Nikki L. M. Brown; Barry M. Stentiford
Call Number: Ref. E185.61 .J526 2014
Publication Date: 2014
This one-volume reference work examines a broad range of topics related to the establishment, maintenance, and eventual dismantling of the discriminatory system known as Jim Crow.
John Lewis: the Last Interview by Melville MELVILLE HOUSE (Editor); Jelani Cobb (Introduction by)
Call Number: E840.8.L43 A5 2021
Publication Date: 2021
Throughout John Lewis's long and storied career he maintained a seemingly unwavering hope for a better future. This hope can be traced throughout the interviews collected here. From a young activist testifying in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday to recounting the violence he met as a Freedom Rider to an elder statesman inspired by today's civil rights activists, this collection forms a portrait of a man whose life was spent fighting for a better world and never lost hope.
Long Division by Kiese Laymon
Call Number: PS3612.A959 L66 2021
Publication Date: 2021
From Kiese Laymon, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a "funny, astute, searching" (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age in post-Katrina Mississippi.
The Making of Black Lives Matter by Christopher J. Lebron
Call Number: E185.615 .L393 2017
Publication Date: 2017
A condensed and accessible intellectual history that traces the genesis of the ideas that have built into the #BlackLivesMatter movement in a bid to help us make sense of the emotions, demands, and arguments of present-day activists and public thinkers.
Naomi Osaka by Ben Rothenberg
Call Number: GV994.O73 R68 2024
Publication Date: 2024
A revealing biography of tennis phenomenon and activist Naomi Osaka, telling the untold story behind her Grand Slam-winning career, her headline-making advocacy for racial justice and mental health, and the challenges of a life in the nternational spotlight. Even as she became the highest-paid female athlete in history and one of the most discussed of the past decade, until now, the story of the Haitian-Japanese-American Osaka family's journey to follow their tennis dreams has remained little known.
Night Flyer by Tiya Miles; Henry Louis Gates (Series edited by)
Call Number: E444.T82 M55 2024
Publication Date: 2024-06-18
Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she's a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she's America's Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.
Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin by Phil Cushway (Compiled by); Michael Warr (Editor)
Call Number: PS591 .N4 O33 2016
Publication Date: 2016
This extraordinary volume collects the poems of forty-four of America's most talented African American wordsmiths, including Pulitzer Prize winning poets. Accompanying each poem is a photograph of the poet along with a first-person biography and the book also includes personal essays on race. Images and iconic political posters accompany the work.
On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
Call Number: E185.93.T4 G67 2021
Publication Date: 2021
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed's On Juneteenth provides a historian's view of the country's long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond.
Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1981 by Philip S. Foner; Robin D. G. Kelley (Foreword by)
Call Number: HD6490 .R2 F65 2017
Publication Date: 2018
In this classic account, historian Philip Foner traces the radical history of Black workers' contribution to the American labor movement.
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy Taylor
Call Number: E185.61 .T23 2020
Publication Date: 2020
The first book to explore the historical role and residual impact of the Green Book, a travel guide for black motorists. At that time, it was very dangerous and difficult for African-Americans to travel because black travelers couldn't eat, sleep, or buy gas at most white-owned businesses. The Green Book listed hotels, restaurants, gas stations, and other businesses that were safe for black travelers.
Paying Freedom's Price: A History of African Americans in the Civil War by Paul David Escott
Call Number: E453 .E746 2017
Publication Date: 2017
Paying Freedom's Price provides a comprehensive yet brief and readable history of the role of African Americans--both slave and free--from the decade leading up to the Civil War until its immediate aftermath.
Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad by Miriam Thaggert
Call Number: E185.86 .T385 2022
Publication Date: 2022
Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad.
Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin
Call Number: E585.A35 L48 2019
Publication Date: 2019
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself.
A Shot in the Moonlight: How a Freed Slave and a Confederate Soldier Fought for Justice in the Jim Crow South by Ben Montgomery
Call Number: F456 .M66 2021
Publication Date: 2021
A true tale of justice in the Jim Crow south relates the story of George Dinning, a freed slave who was wrongfully convicted of murder after defending himself against a white mob and later won damages against them in court with the help of a Confederate war hero-turned-lawyer.
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
Call Number: E185.86 .H375 2011
Publication Date: 2011
In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women's political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images.
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates
Call Number: E185.61 .G253 2019
Publication Date: 2019
Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African-Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a 'New Negro' to force the nation to recognise their humanity and unique contributions to the United States.
Sulwe by Lupita Nyong'o; Vashti Harrison (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ7.1 N96 Su 2019
Publication Date: 2019
New York Times bestseller! Featured in the Netflix show Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices! Recipient of a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Children's Literary Work. From Academy Award-winning actress Lupita Nyong'o comes a picture book about colorism, self-esteem, and learning that true beauty comes from within.
The Timetables of African-American History by Sharon Harley
Call Number: Ref. E185 .H295 1995
Publication Date: 1995
From the first African communities in North America to the days of slavery, from the aesthetic achievements of the Harlem Renaissance to the political triumphs of the civil rights movement, from Harriet Tubman's creation of the Underground Railroad to the election of Carol Moseley Braun.
Unshuttered by Patricia Smith
Call Number: PS3569.M537839 U67 2023
Publication Date: 2023-02-15
An award-winning author presents a portrait of Black America in the nineteenth century Over the course of two decades, award-winning poet Patricia Smith has amassed a collection of rare nineteenth-century photographs of Black men, women, and children who, in these pages, regard us from the staggering distance of time.
Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour by Peniel E. Joseph
Call Number: E185.615 .J68 2006
Publication Date: 2006
In 1966, a group of black activists, including Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton, turned their backs on Martin Luther King's pacifism in order to build on the legacy of Malcolm X. The result? The Black Power movement, a radical new approach to the fight for equality. Draws on original archival research and more than 60 original oral histories.
Walking with the Wind by John Lewis; Michael D'Orso
Call Number: E840.8 .L43 A3 2015
Publication Date: 2015
An award-winning national bestseller, Walking with the Wind is one of our most important records of the American Civil Rights Movement. Told by John Lewis, who Cornel West calls a "national treasure," this is a gripping first-hand account of the fight for civil rights and the courage it takes to change a nation. Lewis traces his role in the pivotal Selma marches, Bloody Sunday, and the Freedom Rides. Inspired by his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis's vision and perseverance altered history.
We Go High by Nicole Ellis; Natasha Cunningham (Illustrator)
Call Number: HQ1161 .E55 2022
Publication Date: 2022
We Go High brings together the inspiring stories, motivational quotes, and personal philosophies of 30 influential women of color. From activists to scientists, artists to sporting icons, each woman's story is different-but all have in common a deep-seated resilience to fight against the prejudices and barriers to success that women of color face on a daily basis.
We Return Fighting by Kinshasha Holman Conwill (Editor); John H. Morrow Jr. (Contribution by); Krewasky A. Salter (Contribution by); Lonnie G. Bunch III (Introduction by); Nat'l Mus Nat'l Mus Afr Am Hist Culture
Call Number: D639.N4 W4 2019
Publication Date: 2019
A richly illustrated commemoration of African Americans' roles in World War I highlighting how the wartime experience reshaped their lives and their communities after they returned home.
We Were Eight Years in Power by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: E185.615 .C6336 2017
Publication Date: 2017
New York Times Bestseller. "We were eight years in power" was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. In this sweeping collection of essays, National Book Award-winning author, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time... Named One of the Best Books of the Year by Essence, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Time, USA Today…
What Truth Sounds Like by Michael Eric Dyson
Call Number: E185.61 .D996 2018
Publication Date: 2018
In 1963 Attorney General Robert Kennedy sought out James Baldwin to explain the rage that threatened to engulf black America. Baldwin brought along some friends, including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, psychologist Kenneth Clark, and a valiant activist, Jerome Smith.
Wonderful Hair by Eve Nadel Catarevas; Felicia Marshall (Illustrator)
Call Number: PZ7 .M277 Won 2022
Publication Date: 2022
Forgotten today, Annie Turnbo Malone was an influential Black business leader in the early 20th century. She turned her personally developed hair care products into a successful industry, including schools that taught the Poro method in her Poro Colleges
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live by Paul Kix
Call Number: F334.B69 B53 2023
Publication Date: 2023
From journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign--ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America. It's one of the iconic photographs of American history: A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963.
Finding Your Roots by Henry Louis Gates; David Altshuler (Foreword by)
Call Number: CS16 .G365 2014
Publication Date: 2014-09-15
Who are we, and where do we come from? The fundamental drive to answer these questions is at the heart of Finding Your Roots, the companion book to the PBS documentary series seen by 30 million people. As Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. shows us, the tools of cutting-edge genomics and deep genealogical research now allow us to learn more about our roots, looking further back in time than ever before.

50 Events That Shaped African American History by Karsonya Whitehead (Editor); Jamie J. Wilson (Editor)
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2019
This two-volume work celebrates 50 notable achievements of African Americans, highlighting black contributions to U.S. history and examining the ways black accomplishments shaped American culture. This two-volume encyclopedia offers a unique look at the African American experience.
The Abolitionist Movement by Christopher Cameron
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2014
This work provides an overview of the abolitionist movement that allows readers to consider history more directly through more than 20 primary source documents. Includes a concise introduction that summarizes the critical points in the history of slavery and abolition, provides carefully selected key documents that represent the full range of American thoughts on slavery and more.
Africa by Eustace Palmer
Call Number: Proquest eBook Central
Publication Date: 2021-07-01
Africa: An Introduction invites you into Africa: a continent rich with culture and history, with diverse populations stretching from the dense tropical rain forest of the Congo basin, right up to the Sahara Desert in the north, and down to the Mediterranean climates of the far south.
African American Activism and Political Engagement by Angela Jones
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2023
The encyclopedia itself contains approximately 200 authoritative entries on a wide assortment of topics related to African-American political activism and empowerment, including biographical profiles of key leaders and activists, political issues and topics of particular interest to African-American voters and lawmakers, important laws and court cases, influential organizations, and pivotal events in American culture that have influenced the trajectory of Black participation in the nation's political life.
African American Females by Eboni M. Zamani-Gallaher (Editor); Vernon C. Polite (Editor)
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2013
African American Females: Addressing Challenges and Nurturing the Future illustrates that across education, health, and other areas of social life, opportunities are stratified along gender as well as race lines. The unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege between men and women intersects with race and class to create multiple levels of disadvantage.
African Americans and the Presidents: Politics and Policies from Washington to Trump by F. Erik Brooks; Glenn L. Starks
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2019
The president is arguably the most recognized and powerful individual in the United States. This reference work explores the American presidency in relation to issues of race concerning the African American community.
African Religions: Beliefs and Practices Through History by Douglas Thomas (Editor); Temilola Alanamu (Editor)
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2018
This book supplies fundamental information about the diverse religious beliefs of Africa, explains central tenets of the African worldview, and overviews various forms of African spiritual practices and experiences.
Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement by Karcheik Sims-Alvarado
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2017
During the first half of the 20th century, a progressive group of black business, civic, and religious leaders from Atlanta, Georgia, challenged the status quo by employing a method of incremental gradualism to improve the social and political conditions existent within the city.
Black City Cinema by Paula Massood
Call Number: Proquest eBook Central
Publication Date: 2011-01-19
In Black City Cinema, Paula Massood shows how popular films reflected the massive social changes that resulted from the Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North, West, and Mid-West during the first three decades of the twentieth century.
Colorization : One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World by Wil Haygood
Call Number: Proquest eBook Central
Publication Date: 2021-10-19
This unprecedented history of Black cinema examines 100 years of Black movies--from Gone with the Wind to Blaxploitation films to Black Panther--using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture, civil rights, and racism in America. From the acclaimed author of The Butler and Showdown.
A Companion to African American History by Alton Hornsby (Editor); Alton Hornsby (Editor)
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2008
Analyzes the major sources and the most influential books and articles in the field Includes discussions of globalization, region, migration, gender, class and social forces that make up the broad cultural fabric of African American history.
Cooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1865-1960 by Rebecca Sharpless
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2010
As African American women left the plantation economy behind, many entered domestic service in southern cities and towns. Cooking was one of the primary jobs they performed, feeding generations of white families and, in the process, profoundly shaping southern foodways and culture.
Cultural Codes: Makings of a Black Music Philosophy: An Interpretive History from Spirituals to Hip Hop by William C. Banfield
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2010
Banfield engages the reader in a conversation about the aesthetics and meanings that inform this critical component of our social consciousness. By providing a focused examination of the historical development of Black music artistry, Banfield formulates a useable philosophy tied to how such music is made, shaped, and functions.
Daily Life of African Americans in Primary Documents [2 Volumes] by Herbert C. Covey (Editor); Dwight Eisnach (Editor)
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2020
Daily Life of African Americans in Primary Documents takes readers on an insightful journey through the life experiences of African Americans over the centuries, capturing African American experiences, challenges, accomplishments, and daily lives, often in their own words.
Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas by Colin A. Palmer, ed.
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2006
Five volume set covering all aspects of the African-American experience from 1619 to the present day. Using biographies, historical essays, and thematic pieces, many written by foremost scholars, it addresses a wide array of subjects.
Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture by Jessie Carney Smith (Editor)
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2011
This four-volume encyclopedia contains compelling and comprehensive information on African American popular culture. Contains writings from 100 contributing authors, a chronology placing pivotal events in historical context, key places, events, and people through photographs as well as words, and provides a list of black radio programs and movies.
Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture by Carole Boyce-Davies (Editor); Carole Elizabeth Boyce Davies (Editor)
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2008
The authoritative source for information on the people, places, and events of the African Diaspora, spanning five continents and five centuries. Includes more than 500 A-Z entries, contributions from hundreds of leading scholars, and maps showing key locations in the African Diaspora.
Forging Diaspora: Afro-Cubans and African Americans in a World of Empire and Jim Crow by Frank Andre Guridy
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2010
In Forging Diaspora, Frank Andre Guridy shows that the cross-national relationships nurtured by Afro-Cubans and black Americans helped to shape the political strategies of both groups as they attempted to overcome a shared history of oppression and enslavement.
A Forgotten Sisterhood: Pioneering Black Women Educators and Activists in the Jim Crow Souith by Audrey Thomas McCluskey; Audrey Thomas Mccluskey
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2014
In the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century a small group of women overcame personal and professional hardships to gain national prominence as educational reformers and social activists. The women in this book were educators as well as being activists, lecturers, and suffragists.
From Toussaint to Tupac:The Black International Since the Age of Revolution by Michael O. West (Editor); William G. Martin (Editor); Fanon Che Wilkins (Editor)
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2009
Transcending geographic and cultural lines, From Toussaint to Tupac is an ambitious collection of essays exploring black internationalism and its implications for a black consciousness. At its core, black internationalism is a struggle against oppression, whether manifested in slavery, colonialism, or racism.
History of African Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots by Cary D. Wintz; Nikki M. Taylor; Ph.D., Thomas J Davis
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2016
This rich cultural history of African Americans outlines their travails, triumphs, and achievements in negotiating individual and collective identities to overcome racism, slavery, and the legacies of these injustices from colonial times to the present. *E-book only
I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915 by Louis Moore
Call Number: Ebsco eBook
Publication Date: 2017
Louis Moore draws on the life stories of African American fighters active from 1880 to 1915 to explore working-class black manhood. As he details, boxers bought into American ideas about masculinity and free enterprise to prove their equality while using their bodies to become self-made men.
Racism in America: a Reference Handbook by Steven L. Foy
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2020
This book explains how race, once a differentiating factor, became a major basis for stratification in the United States that pervaded scientific thought, religious doctrine, governmental policy, and the patterned actions of decision-makers in all sectors of social life.
We the People, Volume 3: the Civil Rights Revolution by Bruce Ackerman
Call Number: Proquest eBook
Publication Date: 2014
The Civil Rights Revolution carries Bruce Ackerman's sweeping reinterpretation of constitutional history into the era beginning with Brown v. Board of Education. From Rosa Parks's courageous defiance, to Martin Luther King's resounding cadences in "I Have a Dream," to Lyndon Johnson's leadership of Congress, to the Supreme Court's decisions redefining the meaning of equality.
The World of Jim Crow America [2 Volumes] by Steven A. Reich (Editor)
Call Number: Gale eBook
Publication Date: 2019
This book provides important details about the daily lives of African Americans during the Jim Crow era in America. It covers the hundred-year period of enforced legal segregation that began immediately after the Civil War and continued until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.

American Africans in Ghana by Kevin K. Gaines
Call Number: DT510.43 .A37 G35 2006
Publication Date: 2006
In 1957 Ghana became one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to gain independence from colonial rule. Over the next decade, hundreds of African Americans visited or settled in Ghana. Kevin K. Gaines explains what attracted these Americans to Ghana and how their new community was shaped by the convergence of the Cold War, the rise of the U.S. civil rights movement, and the decolonization of Africa.
American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass by Douglas S. Massey; Nancy A. Denton
Call Number: E185.61 .M373 1993
Publication Date: 1993
This book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities.
Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South by Deborah Gray White
Call Number: E443 .W58 1999
Publication Date: 1999
Living with the dual burdens of racism and sexism, slave women in the plantation South assumed roles within the family and community that contrasted sharply with traditional female roles in the larger American society. Explores new ways of understanding the intersection of race and gender and comparing the myths that stereotyped female slaves with the realities of their lives.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Call Number: E909 .O24 A3 2018
Publication Date: 2018
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States. As First Lady of the United States of America - the first African-American to serve in that role - she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call Number: E185.615 .C6335 2015
Publication Date: 2015
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. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it?
Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins
Call Number: HQ1426 .C633 2009
Publication Date: 2008
In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without. Here Collins provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde.
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City by Clair Drake; Horace R. Cayton; Mary Pattillo (Foreword by)
Call Number: F548.9 .N4 D73 2015
Publication Date: 2015
Ground-breaking when first published in 1945, Black Metropolis remains a landmark study of race and urban life. Few studies since have been able to match its scope and magnitude, offering one of the most comprehensive looks at black life in America. This book is a sweeping historical and sociological account of the people of Chicago's South Side from the 1840s through the 1930s.
Black Picket Fences, Second Edition by Mary Pattillo; Annette Lareau (Foreword by)
Call Number: F548.9 .N4 P38 2013
Publication Date: 2013
Mary Pattillo's Black Picket Fences explores an American demographic group too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. Nearly fifteen years later, this book remains a groundbreaking study of a group still underrepresented in the academic and public spheres.
The Black Revolution on Campus by Martha Biondi
Call Number: LC2781 .B38 2012
Publication Date: 2012
The Black Revolution on Campus is the definitive account of an extraordinary but forgotten chapter of the black freedom struggle. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black students organized hundreds of protests that sparked a period of crackdown, negotiation, and reform that profoundly transformed college life. At stake was the very mission of higher education.
Black Woman Reformer: Ida B. Wells, Lynching, and Transatlantic Activism by Sarah L. Silkey
Call Number: E185.97 .W55 S55 2015
Publication Date: 2018
During the early 1890s, a series of shocking lynchings brought unprecedented international attention to American mob violence. This interest created an opportunity for Ida B. Wells, an African American journalist and civil rights activist from Memphis, to travel to England to cultivate British moral indignation against American lynching.
Breath of Freedom by Maria Höhn (Compiled by); Martin A. Klimke
Call Number: E185.63 .H64 2010
Publication Date: 2010
This moving and beautifully illustrated book, developed from an award-winning research project, examines the experience of African-American GIs in Germany since 1945 and the unique insights they provide into the civil rights struggle at home and abroad.
Civil Rights Queen by Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Call Number: KF373.M68 B76 2022
Publication Date: 2022-01-25
The first major biography of one of our most influential judges--an activist lawyer who became the first Black woman appointed to the federal judiciary--that provides an eye-opening account of the twin struggles for gender equality and civil rights in the 20th Century.
Colored Woman in a White World by Mary Church Terrell
Call Number: E185.97 .T47 A3 2005
Publication Date: 2005
Active in both the civil rights movement and the campaign for women's suffrage, Terrell was a leading spokesperson for the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, and the first black woman appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education and the American Association of University Women.
Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Call Number: E185.97 .O23 A3 2004; PBK 6512
Publication Date: 2004
In this iconic memoir of his early days, Barack Obama guides us straight to the intersection of the most serious questions of identity, class, and race. 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.
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby
Call Number: E185.97 .B214 R36 2003
Publication Date: 2003
Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich political career as an organizer, an intellectual, and a teacher, from her early experiences in depression-era Harlem to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Ransby shows Baker to be a complex figure whose radical, democratic worldview, commitment to empowering the black poor, and emphasis on grassroots leadership set her apart from most of her political contemporaries.
Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 by Carol Anderson
Call Number: E185.61 .A543 2003
Publication Date: 2003
As World War II drew to a close, African American leaders sensed the opportunity to launch an offensive against the conditions of segregation and inequality in America. The 'prize' they sought was not civil rights, but human rights.
Fannie Lou Hamer by Maegan Parker Brooks
Call Number: E185.97.H35 B757 2020
Publication Date: 2020
This accessible biography will enrich public memory about Hamer by telling not only the significant story of her riveting testimony, but also by recounting a life filled with triumphs, tragedies, and accompanying lessons for contemporary audiences.
Gender and Jim Crow, Second Edition by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore
Call Number: E185.93 .N6 G55 2019
Publication Date: 2019
This classic work helps recover the central role of black women in the political history of the Jim Crow era. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore explores the pivotal and interconnected roles played by gender and race in North Carolina politics from the period immediately preceding the disfranchisement of black men in 1900 to the time black and white women gained the vote in 1920.
Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closing on Chicago’s South Side by Eve L. Ewing
Call Number: LC2803 .C4 E95 2018
Publication Date: 2018
In 2013 when Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an unprecedented wave of school closings-pitched simultaneously as a solution to a budget problem, a response to declining enrollments, and a chance to purge bad schools that were dragging down the whole system-the plan was met with a roar of protest from parents, students, and teachers.
Hammer and Hoe by Robin D. G. Kelley
Call Number: HX91 .A2 K45 2015
Publication Date: 2015
Hammer and Hoe tells the story of how, during the 1930s and 40s, Communists took on Alabama's repressive, racist police state to fight for economic justice, civil and political rights, and racial equality. The Alabama Communist Party was made up of working people without a Euro-American radical political tradition: devoutly religious and semiliterate black laborers and sharecroppers.
Jumpin' Jim Crow by Jane Elizabeth Dailey (Editor); Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore (Editor); Bryant Simon (Editor)
Call Number: F215 .J86 2000
Publication Date: 2000
The form of segregation and subjection nicknamed Jim Crow constantly had to remake itself over time even as white southern politicians struggled to extend its grip. Here, some of the most innovative scholars of southern history question Jim Crow's sway, evolution, and methods over the course of a century.
Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement by Patricia Sullivan
Call Number: E185.5 .N276 S85 2009
Publication Date: 2009
Sullivan unearths the little-known early decades of NAACP's activism, telling startling stories of personal bravery, legal brilliance and political manoeuvring, before moving on to the critical post-war era.
Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics in Washington, D.C., 1910-1940 by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis
Call Number: HD6072.2 .U52 W183 2010
Publication Date: 2010
This oral history portrays the lives of African American women who migrated from the rural South to work as domestic servants in Washington, DC in the early decades of the twentieth century. Clark-Lewis narrates the personal experiences of eighty-one women who worked for wealthy white families. These women describe how they encountered--but never accepted--the master-servant relationship, and recount their struggles to change their status from "live in" servants to daily paid workers who "lived out."
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry
Call Number: PS3515 .A515 Z84 2018
Publication Date: 2018
After the success of A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry used her prominence in myriad ways- challenging President Kennedy and his brother to take bolder stances on Civil Rights, supporting African anti-colonial leaders, and confronting the romantic racism of the Beat poets and Village hipsters.
Loyalty in Time of Trial by Nina Mjagkij
Call Number: D639 .N4 M55 2011
Publication Date: 2011
In one of the few book-length treatments of the subject, Nina Mjagkij conveys the full range of the African American experience during the "Great War." Following the war, emboldened by their military service and their support of the war on the home front, African Americans were determined to fight for equality. These two factors forced America to confront the impact of segregation and racism.
Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century by Barbara Ransby
Call Number: E185.615 .R26 2018
Publication Date: 2018
What began as outrage over the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and the exoneration of his killer, and accelerated during the Ferguson uprising of 2014, has evolved into a resurgent Black Freedom Movement, which includes a network of more than fifty organizations working together under the rubric of the Movement for Black Lives coalition.
Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South by Grace Elizabeth Hale
Call Number: F215 .H18 1999
Publication Date: 1999
Making Whiteness is a profoundly important work that explains how and why whiteness came to be such a crucial, embattled--and distorting--component of twentieth-century American identity.
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable; G. Valmont Thomas (Read by)
Call Number: BP223 .Z8 L57636 2011
Publication Date: 2011
Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age thirty-nine. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander; Cornel West (Introduction by)
Call Number: HV9950 .A437 2012
Publication Date: 2012
In a bold and innovative argument, a rising legal star shows readers how the mass incarceration of a disproportionate number of black men amounts to a devastating system of racial control. Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow laws, the system that once forced African-Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts and the criminal justice system.
No Peace Without Freedom by Joyce Blackewell
Call Number: JZ5578 .B57 2004
Publication Date: 2004
Just as women changed the direction and agenda of the peace movement when they became progressively more involved in an all-male club, black women altered a cause that had previously lacked racial diversity when they were first granted admission to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in 1915.
The Obama Phenomenon: Toward a Multiracial Democracy by Charles P. Henry; Robert Allen; Robert Chrisman
Call Number: E901.1 .O23 O462 2011
Publication Date: 2011
Barack Obama's campaign and electoral victory demonstrated the dynamic nature of American democracy. Beginning as a special issue of The Black Scholar, this probing collection illustrates the impact of "the Obama phenomenon" on the future of U.S. race relations through readings on Barack Obama's campaign as well as the idealism and pragmatism of the Obama administration.
On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker by A'Lelia Bundles; A'Lelia Bundles
Call Number: HD9970.5 .C672 W3533 2002
Publication Date: 2002
On Her Own Ground is the first full-scale, definitive biography of Madam C. J. Walker--the legendary African American entrepreneur and philanthropist. By her death in 1919, Walker managed to overcome astonishing odds: building a storied beauty empire from the ground up, amassing wealth unprecedented among black women and devoting her life to philanthropy and social activism.
Paris Noir by Tyler Stovall
Call Number: DC718 .A36 S76 2012
Publication Date: 2012
A history of black Americans who settled in Paris, France, from 1900 to the present.
Photography on the Color Line: W.E.B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture by Shawn Michelle Smith
Call Number: TR23 .S63 2004
Publication Date: 2004
Through a rich interpretation of the remarkable photographs W. E. B. Du Bois compiled for the American Negro Exhibit at the 1900 Paris Exposition, Shawn Michelle Smith reveals the visual dimension of the color line that Du Bois famously called "the problem of the twentieth century."
Private Politics and Public Voices by Nikki Brown
Call Number: E185.86 .B6975 2006
Publication Date: 2006
This political history of middle-class African American women during World War I focuses on their patriotic activity and social work. Given the hostile racial climate of the day, why did black women make considerable financial contributions to the American and Allied war effort?
Remaking Respectability by Victoria W. Wolcott
Call Number: F574 .D49 N488 2001
Publication Date: 2001
African American women have largely been absent from traditional narratives of the Great Migration because they were excluded from industrial work. By placing these women at the center of her study, Victoria Wolcott reveals their vital role in shaping life in interwar Detroit.
Righteous Discontent by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Call Number: BX6447 .H54 1993
Publication Date: 1993
In this book, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham gives an account of the crucial role of black women in making the church a powerful institution for social and political change in the black community.
Righteous Propagation by Michele Mitchell
Call Number: E185.61 .M674 2004
Publication Date: 2004
Between 1877 and 1930--years rife with tensions over citizenship, suffrage, immigration, and "the Negro problem--African American activists promoted an array of strategies for progress and power built around "racial destiny," the idea that black Americans formed a collective whose future existence would be determined by the actions of its members.
Rising from the Rails by Larry Tye
Call Number: HD8039 .R362 U68 2004
Publication Date: 2004
When George Pullman began recruiting Southern blacks as porters in his luxurious new sleeping cars. Drawing on extensive interviews with dozens of porters and their descendants, Larry Tye reconstructs the complicated world of the Pullman porter, and provides a lively and enlightening look at this important social phenomenon.
Searching for Black Confederates by Kevin M. Levin
Call Number: E585.A35 L48 2019
Publication Date: 2019
More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, scores of websites, articles, and organizations repeat claims that anywhere between 500 and 100,000 free and enslaved African Americans fought willingly as soldiers in the Confederate army. But as Kevin M. Levin argues, such claims would have shocked anyone who served in the army during the war itself.
Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement by Bettye Collier-Thomas (Editor); V. P. Franklin (Editor)
Call Number: E185.61 .S615 2001
Publication Date: 2001
In Sisters in the Struggle, we hear about the unsung heroes of the civil rights movements. We learn of Black women's activism in the Black Panther Party where they fought the police, as well as the entrenched male leadership, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, where the behind-the-scenes work of women kept the organization afloat when it was under siege.
The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois
Call Number: E185.6 .D797 1994
Publication Date: 1994
In this eloquent collection of essays, first published in 1903, Du Bois dares as no one has before to describe the magnitude of American racism and demand an end to it. He draws on his own life for illustration, from his early experiences teaching in the hills of Tennessee to the death of his infant son and his historic break with the conciliatory position of Booker T. Washington.
Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching by Crystal N. Feimster
Call Number: HV6250.4 .W65 F43 2009
Publication Date: 2009
Here, Crystal Feimster breaks new ground in her story of the racial politics of the postbellum South by focusing on the volatile issues of sexual violence.
The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward; William S. McFeely (As told to)
Call Number: E185.61 .W86 2002
Publication Date: 2001
The book offers a clear and illuminating analysis of the history of Jim Crow laws, presenting evidence that segregation in the South dated only to the 1890s.
To 'Joy My Freedom by Tera W. Hunter
Call Number: HD6057.5 .U52 G45 1997
Publication Date: 1997
After the American Civil War, southern black women, such as household labourers and washerwomen, constructed their own world of work, play, negotiation, resistance and community organization. This book traces their struggles as they resisted efforts to keep them economically depressed.
Too Heavy a Load: Black Women in Defense of Themselves by Deborah Gray White
Call Number: E185.86 .W43875 1999
Publication Date: 1998
Too Heavy a Load celebrates this century's rich history of black women defending themselves, from Ida B. Wells to Anita Hill. Although most prominently a history of the century-long struggle against racism and male chauvinism, Deborah Gray White also movingly illuminates black women's painful struggle to hold their racial and gender identities intact.
To Tell the Truth Freely: The Life of Ida B. Wells by Mia Bay
Call Number: E185.97 .W55 B39 2009
Publication Date: 2009
In the richly illustrated To Tell the Truth Freely, the historian Mia Bay vividly captures Wells's legacy and life, from her childhood in Mississippi to her early career in late nineteenth-century Memphis and her later life in Progressive-era Chicago.
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
Call Number: E185.6 .W685 2010
Publication Date: 2010
Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society by Judith Stein
Call Number: E185.97 .G3 S8 1986
Publication Date: 1985
In The World of Marcus Garvey, Judith Stein examines Garvey’s ideology and appeal by placing Garvey and the UNIA carefully in the context of the international black politics and class structure of the period. She analyzes the ways Garvey boldly employed conventional racial ideas and goals to organize a militant black population.

Black AF History

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John Lewis: the Last Interview

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