Black History

National Books Critics Circle - 2024 Finalist: Autobiography

One of Washington Post's 50 most notable non-fiction books of 2024

The Minotaur at Calle Lanza is an unforgettable travel memoir about the mysterious transformations that may lurk inside us all.

Venice, 2020. As a pandemic rages across the globe, Zito Madu finds himself in a nearly deserted city, its walls and basilicas humming with strange magic. As he wanders a haunted landscape, we see him twist further into his own past: his family's difficult immigration from Nigeria to Detroit, his troubled relationship with his father, the sporadic joys of daily life and solitude, his experiences with migration, poverty, foreignness, racism, and his own rage and regret. But as it is with all labyrinths, after finding its center, will he come away unscathed, or will he transform into the gripping, fantastical monstrousness that's out to consume him whole?

With nods to Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges, this surrealist debut memoir takes us into the labyrinth of memory and the monsters lurking there.

Vivian Gibson's bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood has been hailed by critics as a spare, elegant jewel of a work and a love letter to Gibson's childhood.

Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as progress. A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson's large family―her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father―and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson's words, This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.

Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, The Last Children of Mill Creek is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history―or for anyone who was once a child.

An inside look at the music born, bred, and perfected in Chicago.

Chicago house music originated in the city’s Black, gay underground in the late seventies and became one of the most popular musical genres in the world by the end of the century. In Chicago House Music: Culture and Community, Marguerite Harrold tells the story of the genre’s rise and the prolific creators who have sustained it for decades. You’ll learn about house music’s early innovators, like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles, who transformed the social and political turmoil around them into a revolution in dance music. You’ll also hear remembrances from contemporary figures in the house community, like DJ Lady D, Avery R. Young, Czboogie and Edgar “Artek” Sinio, who have forged new paths as the genre has evolved. It’s a story about much more than music—it’s about a community struggling for acceptance, love, liberation, and freedom, and about the creative pioneers whose resilience helped turn house music into a worldwide phenomenon.

Full of interviews and first-hand accounts from the people who stood behind the turntables, carried crates of records, or danced until dawn, Chicago House Music is the history of an art form that continues to be a force for social interaction, spiritual liberation, and community today. 

Colonial Sudbury, Massachusetts, was designated the Puritan Village by author Sumner Chilton Powell in his 1964 Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the founding of this quintessential New England town in 1638. Yet this quiet rural village also had a darker history that is often overlooked. Sudbury’s Puritan inhabitants, including some of the most prominent citizens in town, held and sold enslaved Black people throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Stories gleaned from preserved records highlight the lives of men, women and children held in bondage, including a court case involving an enslaved boy repeatedly beaten and left scarred by his master less than thirty years after the town’s founding, as well as the bill of sale of Phebey, age two, to a woman in another town. Local author Jane Sciacca uncovers the hidden side of suffering in this New England town.

One of the most memorable speeches in American history, Frederick Douglass’s What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? is now available in an elegant hardcover edition.

Douglass first delivered the famous speech on July 5, 1852, to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. After paying respect to the patriotic architects of America’s independence, Douglass exposed the hypocrisy of a nation that enshrined the inalienable rights of man yet enslaved millions. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was meaningless to slaves, Douglass argued, and the annual celebration of a freedom not afforded to them was the worst possible insult.

Throughout the speech, Douglass directly quoted passages from the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bible to support his argument that slavery must be abolished in the United States. Douglass was especially critical of the faith leaders in America that used the church to justify slavery rather than to spearhead positive societal change.

Despite Douglass’s condemnation of the institutions that protected slavery, the speech also emphasized America’s young age and her potential to change for the better. In keeping with this belief in an America that would one day guarantee freedom for all, Douglass delivered “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to audiences nationwide in the decade preceding the Civil War.

Famous figures such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, and Douglass’s descendants have performed small sections of the hour-long speech. Abridged editions of the speech are also disseminated for educational purposes. Because “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” is an incredibly nuanced speech, it is often misrepresented or shared out of context. Now you can read the speech as it was meant to be experienced, in its entirety.

Frederick Douglass’s most famous speech is as relevant today as when it was first delivered in 1852. A defining document of the United States, What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? is essential reading for all Americans.

Explore accounts of Oklahoma’s Freedmen as told by their descendants in these stories of resistance and resilience on the Western frontier. The Freedmen of Oklahoma were black people, both enslaved and free, who had been living among the Indian nations. After the official abolition of slavery in 1866, they forged an identity as their own people as they faced the challenges of the western frontier. By 1906, before Oklahoma statehood, over 20,000 people were classified as “Freedmen” from Five Tribes: Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Nations. For decades, their descendants have been rediscovering their family history and restoring its place in the larger narrative. Angela Walton-Raji has compiled this collection of stories, told by descendants from all five tribes, to ensure that the Freedmen of Oklahoma claim their vibrant part of the state’s heritage.

Notable Quotations from Malcolm X

This pocketsized hardcover book contains nearly one hundred quotations from African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist, Malcolm X.

“It’s freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.” —Malcolm X

Originally published in 1916, this innovative peanut recipe book by prominent Black scientist George Washington Carver is just as delicious today.

How many ways can you possibly prepare the peanut? At least 105, according to George Washington Carver. In this book, Carver compiles recipes from agricultural bulletins, cookbooks, magazines, newspapers and more. Featured peanut recipes include bisque, doughnuts, sausages, candy and dozens of others.

In addition to recipes, Carver shows readers how to grow the peanut, where to plant peanuts, when to harvest them and everything in between. Carver's clean instructions are accessible even to farming hobbyists. Whether you're looking to grow peanuts or simply eat them every which way, this groundbreaking book by George Washington Carver is sure to satisfy.

Author Orice Jenkins tells the full story of Ulysses Goolsby and the Early County massacre more than 100 years later. The Early County Massacre has been known as the Grandison Goolsby War for over a century, focusing on the events of December 30th, 1915, when 46-year-old Grandison used gunfire to defend himself from a lynching mob. Lesser known is that the incident started two days earlier when Grandison’s son was attacked on his way to a wedding, and that it all led to the Supreme Court of Georgia sending that same son to death row five years later.

In many ways, the story of bondage in Virginia is the story of the state itself...

Richmond's 15th Street was known as Wall Street in antebellum times, and like its New York counterpart, it was a center of commerce. But the business done here was unspeakable and the scene heart wrenching. With over sixty-nine slave dealers and auction houses, the Wall Street area saw tens of millions of dollars and countless human lives change hands, fueling the southern economy. Local historian and author Jack Trammell traces the history of the city's slave trade, from the origins of African slavery in Virginia to its destruction at the end of the Civil War. Stories of seedy slave speculators and corrupt traders are placed alongside detailed accounts of the economic, political and cultural impact of a system representing the most immense, concentrated human suffering in our nation's history.

Martha’s Vineyard has always been a unique island and vacation destination, made even more diverse with the arrival of Black homeowners in the 19th century.

Early landowners included the formerly enslaved Charles Shearer, who along with his wife Henrietta, founded Shearer Cottage. However, the fall of the first Black community on the island came in the 1890s when forty Black and Indigenous people were required to remove their cottages from the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association. Despite this painful blow, other families, including the Wests, Jones and Huberts bought island homes, challenging restrictive and racist covenants that encumbered the properties. They then passed their homes on to subsequent generations, leading to a legacy of Black homeownership that thrives to this day. 

Authors Thomas Dresser and Richard Taylor explore the challenges, triumphs and the sense of community that has endured.

The true story of Marshall Major Taylor, who overcame racial prejudice to become one of the most dominant cyclists in history. Part of Belt's Revival series and with an introduction by Zito Madu.

The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World, which Taylor self-published in 1928, gives a riveting first-person account of his rise to the highest echelons of professional cycling. Born in Indianapolis, he eventually became the first African American cycling world champion, going on to set seven world records in the sport.

Readers will learn about Taylor's exploits as an athlete, including his early taste of success in a grueling six-day race, his unparalleled dominance as a sprinter, and some of his most bitter defeats. But the man who achieved international fame as the Black Cyclone also details the extreme prejudice he faced both on and off the track. It's a story about one of the greatest athletes in American history but also a moving testament to Taylor's resilience and determination in the face of overt racism and seemingly impossible odds.

As he tells us himself, I am writing my memoirs . . . in the spirit calculated to solicit simple justice, equal rights, and a square deal for the posterity of my down-trodden but brave people, not only in athletic games and sports, but in every honorable game of human endeavor.

With over a hundred photos collected by G. Faye Dant, and with an introduction by renowned Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin.

When Mark Twain published Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885, he turned Hannibal, Missouri, into one of the most famous towns in the American imagination. But like Twain’s novel, Hannibal’s idyllic façade often elided the darker racial violence that had marked its past, and it overlooked the history and humanity of the Black residents who have called Hannibal home for generations. Without them, there would be no “America’s hometown.”

In Hannibal’s Invisibles, G. Faye Dant, a Hannibal resident and the executive director of Jim’s Journey: The Huck Finn Freedom Center, tells the incredible story of the Black community in this small Missouri town, giving voice to a history that has been marginalized far too long. Hear first-hand accounts from those who survived enslavement, faced racism after emancipation, endured Jim Crow, and contributed to the triumphs of the civil rights movement. These are the stories of Black doctors, entrepreneurs, and teachers who helped uplift the community, and remembrances of the countless individuals who gave richness and meaning to Hannibal’s everyday life. The vintage photographs and historical documents collected here are a celebration of these resilient people who built and sustained this corner of the Midwest, despite the immense obstacles they met at every turn. 

Cincinnati played a large part in creatng a refuge for escaped salaves and in the Underground Railroad movement.

Nearly a century after the American Revolution, the waters of the Ohio River provided a real and complex barrier for the United States to navigate. While this waterway was a symbol of freedom and equality for thousands of enslaved black Americans who had escaped from the horrible institution of enslavement, the Ohio River was also used to transport thousands of slaves down the river to the Deep South. Due to Cincinnati's location on the banks of the river, the city's economy was tied to the slave society in the South. However, a special cadre of individuals became very active in the quest for freedom undertaken by African American fugitives on their journeys to the North. Thanks to spearheading by this group of Cincinnatian trailblazers, the ""Queen City"" became a primary destination on the Underground Railroad, the first multiethnic, multiracial, multiclass human-rights movement in the history of the United States.

Notable Quotations from Barack Obama

This pocket-sized hardcover book contains dozens of quotations on life, government, politics, culture and more from America’s forty-fourth president, Barack Obama. 

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - Barack Obama, Speech to Supporters, February, 5, 2008.

Fear, rumor and white supremacist ideals clashed with an unprecedented labor action spawned an epic tragedy.

On November 23, 1887, white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families due to strikes on Louisiana sugar cane plantations. A future member of the U.S. House of Representatives was among the leaders of a mob that routed black men from houses and forced them to a stretch of railroad track, ordering them to run for their lives before gunning them down. According to a witness, the guns firing in the black neighborhoods sounded like a battle. Author and award-winning reporter John DeSantis uses correspondence, interviews and federal records to detail this harrowing true story.

New York City is blessed with an incredible array of public sculptures.

One overlooked aspect of this collection is its monuments of Black Americans, each with its own remarkable story. The first appearance of a Black person in a city monument came in the Civil War Soldiers’ Monument in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery in 1876, but this was a nameless symbolic figure. It wasn’t until 1945 that Booker T. Washington became the first identifiable Black American honored in a New York City monument. In 2007, the city dedicated its first monument to a Black woman, Harriet Tubman. Behind every first is a story of triumph over adversity and exclusion. Local author David Felsen reveals the stories behind thirty inspiring monuments that have endured, as well as how they found their place in the city’s history.

Discover the untold stories of Virginia’s heroes in the Revolutionary War—grief, sacrifice, and courage.

The stories of the passions and personalities that placed Virginia in the forefront of the Revolutionary War were replete with grief and sacrifice. The breakup of families over political differences was common. Bereavement spared few, as evidenced by the death of George Washington’s stepson. But courageous characters persisted, from the “Paul Revere of Virginia” to the enslaved man turned American spy who helped ensure the Continental Army’s final victory at Yorktown. Author and TV host Chuck Mills documents the human side of the Revolution in the Old Dominion, including chronicles of battles, leaders and the impact of war on ordinary men and women.

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.

Through a fascinating narrative and stunning vintage photographs, readers will discover the struggles and triumphs of the African Americans of Hampton Roads.

It was in Hampton Roads, Virginia, that hundreds gained their freedom. The teeming wharves were once a major station on the Underground Railroad, and during the Civil War, escaped slaves such as Shepard Mallory, Frank Baker and James Townsend fled to Fort Monroe to become contrabands under the protection of General Benjamin Butler. Upon arrival in the region, many took up arms for the Union, and the valiant deeds of some placed them among the first African American Medal of Honor recipients. Join Professor Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander as she charts the history of this remarkable African American community from the Civil War to Reconstruction.

Seen on the roadways of Charleston County and in museums and galleries worldwide, handmade sweetgrass baskets have been crafted in the Christ Church Parish of Mount Pleasant, SC for more than 300 years.

An ancient African art, sweetgrass basket making utilizes sweetgrass, bullrush, pine needles, and palm leaves to create unique, handmade pieces. Traditionally, artisans use a piece of the rib bone of a cow and a pair of scissors as their only tools for construction. When English settlers founded Christ Church Parish in the late 1600s, they saw a place rich in natural beauty and ideal for harvesting rice, cotton, and indigo. Skilled agricultural laborers were needed, and consequently, South Carolina became the top importer of enslaved West Africans. Finding a landscape similar to their homeland, those who came kept many of their traditional practices. Today, the richness of the West African presence can be seen in Charleston's architecture, basketry, and ironworks.

Surveying the sensational newspaper accounts as events unfolded, author and historian Chris Flook recounts this grisly tale of political intrigue and conspiracy.

In the fall of 1902, Indianapolis police uncovered a prolific graverobbing ring operating across the city. At the time, cemeteries across central Indiana were relieved of their dead by ghouls, as they were called, seeking fresh corpses desperately needed by the city's medical colleges. The ring was also accused of multiple murders. In Hamilton County, a former Confederate soldier named Wade West delivered stolen corpses by floating them down the White River. His counterpart in Indianapolis, Rufus Cantrell, an itinerant preacher and full-time graverobber known as the "King of the Ghouls," ransacked Indy's cemeteries for years before being caught.

By the late 20th century, Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison, had been altered until it would no longer have been recognizable to the couple.

In 2000 the newly-created Montpelier Foundation took over management of the historic home with the seemingly insurmountable task of restoring it to be a visual record of the Madisons' era. Within ten years, the Foundation overcame numerous hurdles, turning Montpelier into a monument to the Father of the Constitution. Over the next decade the site also became a monument to Montpelier's enslaved. The buildings in their community next to the Madisons' home were reconstructed, and award-winning exhibits dramatically illustrate the tragedy of slavery and essential role of enslaved people in Madison's life.

Foundation co-founder William H. Lewis details the nonprofit's ambitious preservation projects and remarkable achievements.

Discover a lost world of farmers cutting hay with scythes and dancing to fiddle music on barn floors through the Long Island paintings of William Sidney Mount.

Explore vivid depictions of people of color, presented with great humanity when racist caricatures were the norm.

This landmark book reveals the lives of Rachel, the eel spearer; Henry Brazier, the left-handed fiddler; George Freeman, model for the jaunty banjo player, and other agricultural laborers, domestic workers, and musicians who posed for the artist.

Authors Katherine Kirkpatrick and Vivian Nicholson-Mueller take readers on a fascinating historical journey as they publicly honor, by name, the once-anonymous Black and mixed-race models whose images have achieved international recognition.

Stories of a People

Throughout history, African Americans passed along folk tales to ease burdens and make sense of experiences. Tracing back to West Africa, this storytelling tradition provided laughter, instruction and resilience. Animal stories often were proverbs for adults and teaching points for children. Two pioneering Black schoolteachers told of their careers in education. An eyewitness described the Charleston Race Riot in 1919. Others gave testimonies of Denmark Vesey’s attempted slave rebellion. Author Damon L. Fordham presents this collection of Black South Carolina stories and narratives based on interviews and research, including his travels in Africa.

Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Honoree

Lambda Literary Award Finalist-Gay Memoir/Biography

From an exhilarating new voice, a breathtaking memoir about gay desire, Blackness, and growing up.

Darius Stewart spent his childhood in the Lonsdale projects of Knoxville, where he grew up navigating school, friendship, and his own family life in a context that often felt perilous. As we learn about his life in Tennessee—and eventually in Texas and Iowa, where he studies to become a poet—he details the obstacles to his most crucial desires: hiding his earliest attraction to boys in his neighborhood, predatory stalkers, doomed affairs, his struggles with alcohol addiction, and his eventual diagnosis with HIV. Through a mix of straightforward memoir, brilliantly surreal reveries, and moments of startling imagery and insight, Stewart’s explorations of love, illness, chemical dependency, desire, family, joy, shame, loneliness, and beauty coalesce into a wrenching, musical whole.

A lyrical narrative reminiscent of Saeed Jones’s How We Fight for Our Lives and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy, Be Not Afraid of My Body stands as a compelling testament to growing up Black and gay in America, and to the drive in all of us to collect the fragments of our own experience and transform them into a story that does justice to all the multitudes we contain.

A detailed history of a New Orleans landmark. Congo Square is an iconic location in New Orleans culture, filled with the echoes of jazz and the footsteps of modern dance. Brimming with the rich history of the city, this auspicious landmark traces its origins back to the 1740s. A popular gathering place for African-Americans, the square hosted public markets, musical events, and even the Congo Circus throughout its history. Johnson's detailed analysis of the development of the landmark places the deep-set culture of both the African-American community and the roots of New Orleans music firmly in the heart of Congo Square.

The riveting, heart wrenching story of slave traders and abolitionists, kidnappers and freedmen, cruelty and courage on Maryland's eastern shore.

African Americans, both enslaved and free, were vital to the economy of the Eastern Shore of Maryland before the Civil War. Maryland became a slave society in colonial days when tobacco ruled. Some enslaved people, like Anthony Johnson, earned their freedom and became successful farmers. After the Revolutionary War, others were freed by masters disturbed by the contradiction between liberty and slavery. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman ran from masters on the Eastern Shore and devoted their lives to helping other enslaved people with their words and deeds. Jacqueline Simmons Hedberg uses local records, including those of her ancestors, to tell a tale of slave traders and abolitionists, kidnappers and freedmen, cruelty and courage.

African Americans have made rich contributions to Florida throughout its history in all avenues of public and private life, from education, to business, to politics, a keystone of which was the ability to own and sell property. Author Jada Wright-Greene showcases this legacy through historic photographs of black American's homes, detailing the lives of the people who lived in them through engaging narrative.

During World War II, no American city suffered a worse housing shortage than Detroit, and no one suffered that shortage more than the city's African American citizens.

In 1941, the federal government began constructing the Sojourner Truth Housing Project in northeast Detroit to house 200 black war production workers and their families. Almost immediately, whites in the neighborhood vehemently protested. On February 28, 1942, a confrontation between black tenants and white protesters erupted in a riot that sent at least 40 to the hospital and more than 220 to jail. This confrontation was the precursor to the bloodiest race riot of the war just sixteen months later.

Gerald Van Dusen, author of 2020 Michigan Notable Books nominee Detroit's Birwood Wall, unfolds the background and events of this overlooked moment in Motor City history.

On February 5th, 1946, the Ferguson brothers were concluding a night out celebrating Charles Ferguson's reenlistment in the Army...

Charles, wearing his military uniform, walked with his brothers Alphonso, Joseph, and Richard towards the Freeport Bus Terminal to go home. A provisional Freeport police officer named Joseph Romeika stopped the brothers over a disorderly conduct complaint. Words were exchanged, and Officer Romeika killed Charles, Alphonso and shot Joseph within minutes of the initial stop. Following the unarmed shooting, Romeikia was acquitted despite changing stories of eyewitnesses.

Discover how the shooting became a catalyst for civil rights efforts and immortalized in a Woody Guthrie protest song.

Read the story of the Battle of Antietam from the African American perspective.

The African American community around Sharpsburg, Maryland witnessed John Brown’s raid, wartime skirmishes, the Battle of South Mountain, and the aftermath of the bloodiest day in American history. Read stories of encounters with Abraham Lincoln and Union and Confederate generals, and of Black civilian suffering and sacrifice in the cause of freedom. Their experiences during four years of Civil War come to life in vivid detail, often in their own words.

Award-winning historian Emilie Amt recounts the personal stories of African Americans, both enslaved and free, who lived on the battlefield and who worked in the armies who clashed there.

Slavery is a tragic chapter in the history of Wilkes County with a lasting legacy. Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams Barber endured forty-five years of slavery and garnered respect from both white and black residents. Her story is linked to free person of color and noted landowner Henderson Waugh, whose illustrious, slaveholding white father connected the two families—one slave and the other free. Author Larry Griffin takes readers on an emotional journey to separate fact from myth as he chronicles the history of slavery in Wilkes County.

 Prominent businessmen and celebrated civic leaders, like General William Lenoir and William Pitt Waugh, were among the county's largest slaveholders. Judith Williams Barber endured forty-five years of slavery and garnered respect from both white and black residents. Her story is linked to free person of color and noted landowner Henderson Waugh, whose illustrious, slaveholding white father connected the two families—one slave and the other free. Author Larry Griffin takes readers on an emotional journey to separate fact from myth as he chronicles the history of slavery in Wilkes County.

Authors David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker separate fact from fiction in the story of Ohio’s Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a macabre sort of dance between good and evil in which each side was trying to steal away the other’s partner. However, in the upside-down-world of pre-Civil War America, the law was firmly on the side of evil and the dance often ended in death. It was a time when the newly formed country was deeply divided on the question of slavery and its fate hung in the balance. Just how long could a house divided against itself be expected to stand?

Prior to the Civil War, thousands escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Untold others failed in the attempt.

These unfortunate souls were dragged into bondage via the Reverse Underground Railroad, as it came to be called. With more lines on both roads than any other state, the Free State of Ohio became a hunting ground for slavecatchers and kidnappers who roamed the North with impunity, seeking “fugitives” or any person of color who could be sold into slavery. And when they found one, they would kidnap their victim and head south to reap the reward.

David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker, authors of Historic Black Settlements of Ohio, reveal not only the terror and injustice but also the bravery and determination born of this dark time in American history.

Between 1914 and 1951, Black Bottom's black community emerged out of the need for black migrants to find a place for themselves.

Because of the stringent racism and discrimination in housing, blacks migrating from the South seeking employment in Detroit's burgeoning industrial metropolis were forced to live in this former European immigrant community. During World War I through World War II, Black Bottom became a social, cultural, and economic center of struggle and triumph, as well as a testament to the tradition of black self-help and community-building strategies that have been the benchmark of black struggle. Black Bottom also had its troubles and woes. However, it would be these types of challenges confronting Black Bottom residents that would become part of the cohesive element that turned Black Bottom into a strong and viable community.

Decades of Duty

IIn 1881, the first Buffalo Soldiers arrived in Arizona pursuing elusive Apaches. Over the following decades, African Americans from the Tenth U.S. Cavalry and Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Infantry added to the laurels won by the Ninth U.S. Cavalrymen. For more than six decades, Black soldiers served with honor, from campaigns against determined Native Americans to facing dangers along the turbulent border as the Mexican Revolution raged. During the dark days of World War II, they prepared for combat against foes both abroad and at home. All the while, they faced an ever-present, persistent enemy: racism.

Author John P. Langellier brings to life the rich history of Buffalo Soldiers in the Copper State.

Durham is a progressive New South city, one in which both the white and black populations have economically and culturally prospered over the past
century.

Durham's Hayti opens a door into the community's past that will allow you to walk down
familiar streets into a time that may seem distant, but is not that far removed, and to experience the full life of Hayti, from its churches and schools to its businesses and recreational pursuits.

From Nashville's earliest days as a pioneer town in Middle Tennessee, it would be nothing without its African American community.

Like many cities of the Antebellum South, Nashville was built by enslaved people, as African Americans built the first successful water system, maintained the streets, cultivated crops, and bred livestock. For years, Nashville was considered one of the wealthiest Southern cities, but after the Civil War, it struggled to regain that status while its newly freed Black citizens struggled to survive the South's Reconstruction and subsequent Jim Crow laws. As the Civil Rights era brought long-needed reforms, the Black community of Nashville has persevered through their determination, spiritual strength, and the unique leadership fostered by the visionary city they call home.

From the Siege of Petersburg to the struggle for civil rights, the history of Petersburg's African American community is detailed in this volume.

The city of Petersburg has distinguished itself as a special place for African American history. African Americans in Petersburg have overcome racial and political obstacles placed in their paths. The city was the site of one of the largest free black populations in the South leading up to the Civil War, and more black soldiers participated in the Siege of Petersburg than in any other Civil War engagement. The city is the location of First Baptist Church, the nation's oldest black church; has produced trailblazers in political life, including Virginia's first black mayor; and is the site of the famous Halifax Triangle, a thriving black business district. This diverse and poignant collection of photographs reveals a heritage rich in entrepreneurial spirit, devotion to church life, and unshakable courage in the struggle for civil rights.

Here is the black Chicago family album, of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find the American Dream.

The story of black Chicago is so rich that few know it all. It began long before the city itself. Wells, the Eighth Regiment, Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and much more . . . including a guy named Obama. ""The first white man here was a black man,"" Potowatami natives reportedly said about Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the brown-skinned man recognized as Chicago's first non-Indian settler. It's all here: from the site of DuSable's cabin--now smack-dab in the middle of Chicago's Magnificent Mile--to images of famous and infamous residents like boxers Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Here are leaders and cultural touchstones like Jesse Binga's bank, Robert S. Abbott's Chicago Defender, legendary filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Ida B. Here is the black Chicago family album, of folks who made and never made the headlines, and pictures and stories of kinship and fellowship of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find their piece of the American Dream. Chicago has been called the ""Second City,"" but black Chicago is second to none.

A fascinating history of Suffolk's heroic African-American community. A must-have for African-American and Virginia history enthusiasts.

After the Civil War, African-Americans throughout Suffolk and Nansemond County fought against injustice by demanding equality before the law, the right to vote, and equal access to schools, employment, and professions. Because of their tolerance and sense of fortitude, they were able to own land and businesses and to establish churches, schools, and social organizations that paved the way for generations to come.

Suffolkis a result of the many contributions made by countless pioneers in education, business, religion, social organizations, and community leadership. In this volume, Suffolk native and archivist Annette Montgomery shares timeless, evocative images and passages for all to enjoy.

From farmers to pastors, teachers to sailors, and everything in between, the Black history of Hanover County reflects the dedication and values of the community.

Freedwoman Betsy Hogg Tinsley, in time, became one of the largest landowners in Ashland. Founded in 1870, Brown Grove Baptist Church has been the center of its neighborhood for more than 150 years.

During the time of segregation, Lucian Hunter of Mechanicsville worked to make sure that Black students could get to school. The Barksdale Theatre in the Hanover Tavern produced Virginia’s first professional play based on the African American experience. Tracing their history back to 1796, the Brooks family boasts military service across five generations.

Author and local social studies teacher Joe Gorman celebrates the rich history and proud heritage of Hanover County African Americans.

Notable Quotations from Frederick Douglass

This pocket-sized hardcover book contains dozens of quotations from abolitionist, orator, social reformer and statesman Frederick Douglass.

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other enfastened about his own neck." —Frederick Douglass, Speech at Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, DC, October 22, 1883

Known as the birthplace of black capitalism, Richmond had one of the largest black business districts in America at the turn of the 20th century.

Richmond, Virginia boasts a proud legacy of achievement among its African-American residents. Medical pioneers, civil rights activists, education leaders, and enterprising bankers are listed among the city's African-American sons and daughters. As individuals these men and women made their mark not only on Richmond's, but also the nation's, history. As a community, they have endured centuries of change and worked together for the common good. In their determined faces and in unforgettable scenes of the past, we celebrate and pay tribute to their history.

Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsylvania struggled with slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, although it was virtually extinct everywhere else within Pennsylvania.

Gradually, anti-slavery views prevailed. The Appalachian Mountains and the Susquehanna River provided natural cover for fleeing slaves, causing an influx of travel along the Underground Railroad. Locals like William Wright and James McAllister assisted these runaways while publicly advocating to abolish slavery. Historian Cooper Wingert reveals the struggles between slavery and abolition in South Central Pennsylvania.

The Baltimore African-American community, with its well-known personalities and cultural contributions have made the town what it is today.

Throughout the years, the city of Baltimore has played host to many well-known figures, including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and boxer Joe Louis; the city has been called home by Billie Holiday, Frederick Douglass, and Thurgood Marshall. But it is the local African-American community's members, working diligently to advance and empower themselves, who made history while they lived it.

Richmond is a classic Southern city, most notable as the Confederate capitol. However, the irony of Richmond is that much of its beautiful architecture was built by Black laborers.

The city's vast and varied collection of architecture provides an archive of African American history, both of enslaved and free peoples. Author Selden Richardson explains how iconic symbols of old Richmond and the generations of Black laborers who helped assemble it are embodied in both the preserved and the forgotten architecture of the city. After you finish this book, it will be as if the buildings in Richmond tell their own stories to you.

Men of ValorIn the late 1800s, the new state of Washington promised peace and prosperity to new settlers. At least thirty-three African American men who had served during the Civil War answered the call. Paul Barrows, a former legislator from Mississippi, established the Calvary Baptist Church of Spokane. Gideon H. Stump Bailey became the first African American Justice of the Peace in Franklin. Allin Alfred Hawkins, born into slavery, became one of the wealthiest African American farmers in the Yakima Valley.Author Cynthia A. Wilson uncovers the stories of these courageous men.

Galveston was the birthplace of Juneteenth. Issued in Galveston on June 19, 1865, General Orders, No. 3 announced to the people of Texas that all slaves were free. It is one of the Island's most important historical moments. Although Juneteenth has now become the basis for a national holiday, many Americans wonder how and why this date emerged as the basis for the oldest continually celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery. To even begin to answer these questions, it is necessary to return to the historic roots of the event itself. The Galveston Historical Foundation’s African American Heritage Committee tracks Emancipation Day observances through previously unknown images and untold stories which are also part of an interactive exhibit experience at Ashton Villa, the site of Galveston’s city-wide Juneteenth celebration.

Dust and Determination

After the Civil War, emancipated slaves who didn’t want to pick cotton or operate an elevator headed west to find work and a new life. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving drove two thousand longhorns across southern Texas blazing a trail to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. In 1866, the new Goodnight-Loving Trail was crowded with cattle headed for a government market. By the 1870s, twenty-five percent of the over thirty-five thousand cowboys in the West were black. They were part of trail crews that drove more than twenty-seven million cattle on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, Western Trail, Chisholm Trail and Shawnee Trail. They were paid equally, and their skill and ability brought them earned respect and prestige. Author Nancy Williams recounts their lasting legacy.