Name: Black Communities of Fairfax
Brand: Etta Willson
SKU: 9781467155496
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Black Communities of Fairfax

9781467155496

$24.99

The story of Black Fairfax has long been untold.

The free Black population of Fairfax Court House dates to at least the 1820s. After the Civil War, newly freed Black citizens expanded the hamlet of Jermantown dramatically. Additional segregated neighborhoods, including School Street, which overlapped today’s George Mason University, and Ilda, off Guinea Road, grew and thrived. In the second half of the nineteenth century residents built schools, churches, and a cemetery. These families persevered under Jim Crow in the early twentieth century. After incorporation, the City of Fairfax annexed these historically Black localities, and their separate character began to disappear. This group of authors with deep roots in Fairfax tells the stories of their communities.

Cover image for Black Communities of Fairfax, isbn: 9781467155496

African Americans in Springfield

9781467108218

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

Springfield became the capital of Illinois due in large part to Abraham Lincoln—lawyer, politician, and president. Lincoln lived in Springfield from 1837 to 1861, and during the decade after his departure, the African American population in the city quadrupled. Although Springfield was dominated by railroads, coal mines, and government, African Americans also worked as doctors, dentists, lawyers, professors, politicians, public school teachers, firemen, insurance agents, entrepreneurs, soldiers, military officers, police officers, state troopers, artists, inventors, secretaries, cooks, laborers, car salesmen, and church leaders. After the Springfield Race Riot of 1908, the city became less welcoming for African Americans. Shortly after, however, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League were formed. Further gains under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership were made during the civil rights movement.

Cover image for African Americans in Springfield, isbn: 9781467108218

South Carolina's Matilda Evans

9781467159081

$24.99

The Life of a Trailblazer

Matilda Arabella Evans was born four years after the abolition of slavery and raised on a family farm in eastern Aiken County. She was the first African American woman in South Carolina to obtain a medical license and fervently championed better healthcare for African Americans, with a particular focus on children. Her early life experiences, academic accomplishments, strong religious beliefs and innovative medical approaches made her a crucial figure in enhancing healthcare accessibility for families in South Carolina, especially during the difficult era of racial segregation, when she also served as a civic advocate to uplift her local community. Authors Dr. Walter B. Curry, Beverly Aiken Muhammad and Anusha Ghosh reveal the inspirational story of Dr. Evans and her remarkable journey throughout her career.

Cover image for South Carolina's Matilda Evans, isbn: 9781467159081

Birmingham Foot Soldiers

9781626192201

$21.99

Reverends Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young and Fred Shuttlesworth are iconic names associated with the Birmingham campaign of the civil rights movement. Credit also is due to many local residents who risked their lives for the cause. Myrna Carter Jackson holds no shame in the police record she garnered in protest of the harsh treatment of African Americans in the city. Carolyn Walker Williams, who knew the injustice blacks faced in East Birmingham even as a child, was arrested in protest for the first time while still in school. Gerald Wren grew up in the Smithfield neighborhood, part of which was nicknamed Dynamite Hill as a result of the bombings of blacks' houses, churches and schools. Join author Nick Patterson as he interviews some of Birmingham's foot soldiers and recounts the struggle and adversity overcome.

Cover image for Birmingham Foot Soldiers, isbn: 9781626192201

Virginia's Civil Rights Hero Curtis W. Harris Sr.

9781467153249

$23.99

In 1924, the Virginia State Legislature passed the Racial Integrity Act. The act banned interracial marriage down to "a single drop" of African blood. Just three months later, Curtis W. Harris was born in Dendron, Virginia. Harris was the sixth child of impoverished sharecroppers, living in a desolate outpost of the Commonwealth, but in time he would lead the fight against the Racial Integrity Act and many other racially restrictive laws. Despite being arrested multiple times and beaten, Rev. Harris would help reverse centuries of racial discrimination that began when slaves first arrived in Virginia in 1619. Author William Paul Lazarus tells the story of Harris' determination in the face of intense hostility, which took him to the forefront of America's Civil Rights Movement, arm-in-arm with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Cover of Virginia's Civil Rights Hero Curtis W. Harris Sr depicting a civil rights protest with banners and a megaphone

Quotations of Ida B. Wells

9781429006088

$12.95

Notable Quotations from Ida B. Wells

This pocket-sized hardcover book contains dozens of quotations from American journalist, educator, civil rights leader, women's rights leader and co-founder of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells.

Cover image for Quotations of Ida B. Wells, isbn: 9781429006088

Jefferson City Civil Pilots, The

9781467154499

$24.99

Aviation captivated young men before World War II, regardless of their skin color. But few Black enthusiasts had access, means or opportunity until the Civil Pilot Training program.

Lincoln University of Missouri and the old Jefferson Airfield offered the only program west of the Mississippi River exclusively for Black pilots. Fulfilling the dream of the school’s founders, many successful Lincolnites joined the Tuskegee Airmen, the first U.S. military aviation units. Wendell Pruitt’s aerial acrobatics were legendary, and Wilbur Long was one of twenty-two to survive Nazi POW camps. Clovis Bordeaux went on to be one of the first Black rocket scientists, and Charles Anderson became a pioneer in satellite meteorology. Michelle Brooks explores Lincoln’s men and moments in their pursuit of Double Victory.

Cover image for Jefferson City Civil Pilots, The, isbn: 9781467154499

Voices of Milwaukee Bronzeville

9781467148887

$21.99

A history of the Cream City's lost Black neighborhood told by the people who lived there

Some people don't have to imagine what Milwaukee's Bronzeville was like. They have only to remember. They recall Walnut Street alive with businesses serving a hard-working Black population making something out of the meager resources available to them. They describe religious establishments such as St. Marks Methodist Episcopal, St. Benedict the Moor, Calvary Baptist, and St. Matthews CME attending to the spiritual life and remember the Flame, the Metropole, and Satin Doll night clubs taking care of entertainment and secular needs. Above all, they recollect a people looking out for the well-being of all within its realm.

Gathering interviews with residents of the now vanished neighborhood, Dr. Sandra E. Jones reimagines Bronzeville not just as a place, but as a spirit engendered by a people determined to make a way out of no way.