African American History and Culture

Drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and research, Neil A. Wynn combines narrative history and primary sources as he locates the World War II years within the long-term struggle for African Americans' equal rights.

Nearly 900 African Americans fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima, but accounts of their service have gone largely unrecorded. This book seeks to correct that omission for the sake of the brave Americans who served and for the sake of a more inclusive American history.

Here are collected the testimonies of African Americans who witnessed the Civil War. They include the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass on the meaning of the war; Martin R. Delany on his meeting with Lincoln to gain permission to raise an army of African Americans; Susie King Taylor on her life as a laundress and nurse to a Union regiment in the deep South; Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln's seamstress, on Abraham Lincoln's journey to Richmond after its fall; Elijah P. Marrs on rising from slave to Union sergeant while fighting for his freedom in Kentucky; letters from black soldiers to black newspapers; and much more.

Chuck McGee is an original Tuskegee airman who fought in three wars: World War II, Korea, & Vietnam. Colonel McGee is the most decorated pilot in the history of the Air Force.

Long before Civil Rights, the Tuskegee Airmen fought for equality. First they integrated the Armed Forces, then a whole nation and did it with competency, skill, valour, and courage in combating the enemy abroad and racism at home. Because they stood tall, African Americans and fellow Americans are the better for it.

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.

This resource guides readers through the key events, successes, and trials of the civil rights movement, from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Though significant racial challenges remained even after the dismantling of legal segregation, that only makes studying the civil rights era all the more relevant for students in the twenty-first century.

In his analysis of this important yet long-overlooked organization, Hill challenges what he calls "the myth of nonviolence--the idea that a united civil rights movement achieved its goals through nonviolent direct action led by middle-class and religious leaders. In contrast, Hill constructs a compelling historical narrative of a working-class armed self-defense movement that defied the entrenched nonviolent leadership and played a crucial role in compelling the federal government to neutralize the Klan and uphold civil rights and liberties.

This title explores the creative works of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Works analyzed include "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," "Beyond Vietnam," "Where Do We Go From Here?," and "I Have a Dream."

Texas native James Farmer is one of the "Big Four" of the turbulent 1960s civil rights movement, along with Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young. In Lay Bare the Heart Farmer tells the story of the heroic civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s. This moving and unsparing personal account captures both the inspiring strengths and human weaknesses of a movement beset by rivalries, conflicts and betrayals.

First published in 1993 on the one-year anniversary of the L.A. riots, Race Matters has since become an American classic. Beacon Press is proud to present this hardcover edition with a new introduction by Cornel West. The issues that it addresses are as controversial and urgent as before, and West's insights remain fresh, exciting, and timely. Now more than ever, Race Matters is a book for all Americans-one that will help us build a genuine multiracial democracy.

This Bright Light of Ours offers a tightly focused insider's view of the community-based activism that was the heart of the civil rights movement. A celebration of grassroots heroes, this book details through first-person accounts the contributions of ordinary people who formed  the nonviolent army that won the fight for voting rights.

Highlighting the accomplishments of black women who sought to create positive change after the end of WWI by acknowledging the women who played vital--if not always recognized--roles in this movement, this book shows how their participation helped set the stage for the continued transformation of the black community well into the 1960s.

This book is the definitive collection of the writings of Wallace Thurman (1902-1934), providing a comprehensive anthology of both the published and unpublished works of this bohemian, bisexual writer.

Away from the bustling nightlife of 1920s Harlem, a literary and cultural rebirth was taking place among African American writers, artists, and performers. Producing works that reflected the racial realities of the era between the end of the Civil War and the beginnings of the civil rights movement, these cultural luminaries helped define a new black consciousness. Readers will learn how the Great Migration and changing opportunities for African Americans informed the vibrant creative period known as the Harlem Renaissance. Bridging social and literary history, this volume provides an interdisciplinary overview and serves as a companion to multiple subject areas.

The Harlem Renaissance represented an explosion of African American literature, drama, music, and visual art in 1920s America, with such notable figures as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, and many more leading the charge. This compilation of essays takes a closer look at this pivotal point in African American history, as well as its origins, identity, portrayal of women, and rediscovered authors.

This title examines an important historic event - the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. Easy-to-read, compelling text explores the history of the Harlem neighborhood and issues around racism, Harlem's African-American community, cultural identity, and creative spirit - from jazz to dance to poetry, key influential figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, and Alain Locke, and the effects of this event on society.

Through a journey of literary criticism, "Dialogue: Alice Walker's The Color Purple" follows Celie's transformation from victim to hero. Each scholarly essay becomes a step of the journey that paves the way for the development of self and sexual awareness, the beginnings of religious transformation and the creation of nurturing places like home and community.

From Ishmael Reed and Toni Morrison to Colson Whitehead and Terry McMillan, Darryl Dickson-Carr offers a definitive guide to contemporary African American literature.

The handbook features an A to Z compilation of 415 literary terms, ages, movements, periods, and cultural sources, all cross-referenced, regarding African-American literature.

This title explores the creative works of famous author Toni Morrison. Works analyzed include The Bluest Eye, Beloved, Sula, and Paradise. Clear, comprehensive text gives background biographical information of Morrison.

As a sensitive child in an unhappy family, Langston Hughes began writing at an early age. While still in his twenties, Hughes was one of the most gifted poets of the Harlem Renaissance, and he left a legacy of writing that is still studied and admired today.

This edited volume gathers a collection of essays from a wide range of perspectives that confront Baldwin's impressive and challenging canon as well as his role as a public intellectual. Contributors also explore Baldwin as a confrontational voice during his life and as an enduring call for justice.

In the first biography of James Baldwin in over a decade, Bill Mullen celebrates the personal and political life of the great American writer who refused to shy away from the fire. As a lifelong radical, anti-imperialist, black queer advocate, feminist and pro-Palestinian, the life and writing of James Baldwin (1924-1987) has been an inspiration to generations and his words continue to resonate through our culture at large.

Langston Hughes is often thought of as one of the greatest and most influential African American authors. This fascinating and inspiring biography will have readers enthralled by the life of Hughes as they learn how he became known as the voice of the Harlem Renaissance.

Toni Morrison, the only living American Nobel laureate in literature, published her first novel in 1970. In the ensuing forty plus years, Morrison's work has become synonymous with the most significant literary art and intellectual engagements of our time.

In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, Tricia Rose, described by the New York Times as a "hip hop theorist," takes a comprehensive look at the lyrics, music, cultures, themes, and styles of this highly rhythmic, rhymed storytelling and grapples with the most salient issues and debates that surround it.

Drawing upon a remarkable mix of intensive research and the personal experience of a career devoted to the music about which Dvorak so presciently spoke, Maurice Peress's lively and convincing narrative treats readers to a rare and delightful glimpse behind the scenes of the burgeoning American school of music and beyond.

Jazz is a chameleon art, delighting us with the ease and rapidity with which it changes colors. Now, in Ted Gioia's The History of Jazz, we have at last a book that captures all these colors on one glorious palate. Knowledgeable, vibrant, and comprehensive, it is among the small group of books that can truly be called classics of jazz literature.

In this rich, poignant, and readable work, Imani Perry tells the story of the Black National Anthem as it traveled from South to North, from civil rights to black power, and from countless family reunions to Carnegie Hall and the Oval Office. Drawing on a wide array of sources, Perry uses "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as a window on the powerful ways African Americans have used music and culture to organize, mourn, challenge, and celebrate for more than a century.

Black gospel music grew from obscure nineteenth-century beginnings to become the leading style of sacred music in black American communities after World War II. Jerma A. Jackson traces the music's unique history, profiling the careers of several singers--particularly Sister Rosetta Tharpe--and demonstrating the important role women played in popularizing gospel.

African American slave narratives of the 19th century recorded the atrocities of the antebellum South and provided a solid foundation for the African American literary tradition. By presenting 16 slave narratives in their entirety, this reference conveniently documents this historically significant literary genre.

Freedom's Delay offers a comprehensive and unique overview of the process of manumission commencing in 1776 when slavery was a national institution, not just the southern experience known historically by most Americans. In this volume, the entire country is examined, and major emancipatory efforts--political, literary, legal, moral, and social--made by black and white, free and enslaved individuals are documented over the years from independence through the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition relates the long and brutal history of slavery and the struggle for abolition.

By 1849, the Narrative of William W. Brown was in its fourth edition, having sold over 8,000 copies in less than eighteen months and making it one of the fastest-selling antislavery tracts of its time. The book's popularity can be attributed both to the strong voice of its author and Brown's notoriety as an abolitionist speaker. The son of a slave and a white man, Brown recounts his years in servitude, his cruel masters, and the brutal whippings he and those around him received.

In 1848 William and Ellen Craft made one of the most daring and remarkable escapes in the history of slavery in America. With fair-skinned Ellen in the guise of a white male planter and William posing as her servant, the Crafts traveled by rail and ship--in plain sight and relative luxury--from bondage in Macon, Georgia, to freedom first in Philadelphia, then Boston, and ultimately England.

After emancipation arrived in 1865, former slaves continued to write about their experience of enslavement andtheir upward struggle to realize the promise of freedom and citizenship. Slave Narratives After Slavery reprints five of the most important and revealing first-person narratives of slavery and freedom published after 1865.

Solomon Northrup was kidnapped and made a slave for 12 years, surviving smallpox, lashings and an attempted hanging before being freed. This account provides a first-person narrative of what it was like to be a slave in the American South.