Honoring Black History

The activist and comedian examines key events in black history, from the beginnings of the slave trade in Africa and the Middle Passage to the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Harlem is perhaps the most famous, iconic neighborhood in the United States. A bastion of freedom and the capital of Black America, Harlem's twentieth century renaissance changed our arts, culture, and politics forever. But this is only one of the many chapters in its history. In this work the author, a historian presents a chronicle of this remarkable place. From Henry Hudson's first contact with native Harlemites, through Harlem's years as a colonial...

"Between 1916 and 1970, six million black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as The Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities, it also disconnected them from their roots, their land, and their sense of identity, argues Morgan Jerkins. In this fascinating and deeply personal exploration,...

"What was it like to travel while Black under Jim Crow? Mia Bay brings this dramatic history to life. With gripping stories and a close eye on the rail, bus, and airline operators who implemented segregation, she shows why access to unrestricted mobility has been central to the Black freedom struggle since Reconstruction and remains so today"--

"It is staggering that there is no date commemorating the end of slavery in the United States." -Annette Gordon-Reed. The essential, sweeping story of Juneteenth's integral importance to American history, as told by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian andTexas native. Interweaving American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed, the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s, recounts...

This classic iconic study of black images in American motion pictures has been updated and revised, as Donald Bogle continues to enlighten us with his historical and social reflections on the relationship between African Americans and Hollywood. He notes the remarkable shifts that have come about in the new millennium when such filmmakers as Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and Ava DuVernay (Selma) examined America's turbulent racial history and the...

The inspiring story of the first African American soldiers to serve during the post slavery era. Many have heard how Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War. But often forgotten in the great swamp of history is that Roosevelt's success was ensured by a dedicated corps of black soldiers-the so-called Buffalo Soldiers-who fought by Roosevelt's side during his legendary campaign. This book tells their...

"A leading civil rights historian places Robert Kennedy for the first time at the center of the movement for racial justice of the 1960s-and shows how many of today's issues can be traced back to that pivotal time"--

"The absorbing narrative of Frederick Douglass's heated struggle with President Andrew Johnson reveals a new perspective on Reconstruction's demise. When Andrew Johnson rose to the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, African Americans were optimistic that Johnson would pursue aggressive federal policies for Black equality. Just a year earlier, Johnson had cast himself as a "Moses" for the Black community. Frederick Douglass, the country's...

""The story of the Chicago Defender is the story of race in the twentieth century." -- Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded The Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed...