A Black Women's History of the United States
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The award-winning Revisioning American History series continues with this "groundbreaking new history of Black women in the United States" (Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist)-the perfect companion to An Indigenous People's History of the United States and An African American and Latinx History of the United States. An empowering and intersectional history that centers the stories of African American women across 400+ years, showing how they are-and have always been-instrumental in shaping our country. In centering Black women's stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women's unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today. A Black Women's History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices- enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women's history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities throughout the nation.
Let Nobody Turn Us Around: An African American Anthology
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This anthology of black writers traces the evolution of African American perspectives throughout American history, from the early years of slavery to the end of the twentieth century. The essays, manifestos, interviews, and documents assembled here, contextualized with critical commentaries from Marable and Mullings, introduce the reader to the character and important controversies of each period of black history. The selections represent a broad spectrum of ideology. Conservative, radical, nationalistic, and integrationist approaches can be found in almost every period, yet there have been striking shifts in the evolution of social thought and activism. The editors judiciously illustrate how both continuity and change affected the African American community in terms of its internal divisions, class structure, migration, social problems, leadership, and protest movements. They also show how gender, spirituality, literature, music, and connections to Africa and the Caribbean played a prominent role in black life and history.
Four Hundred Souls
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire. FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL * NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post, Town & Country, Ms. magazine, BookPage, She Reads, BookRiot, Booklist * "A vital addition to [the] curriculum on race in America . . . a gateway to the solo works of all the voices in Kendi and Blain's impressive choir."--The Washington Post "From journalist Hannah P. Jones on Jamestown's first slaves to historian Annette Gordon-Reed's portrait of Sally Hemings to the seductive cadences of poets Jericho Brown and Patricia Smith, Four Hundred Souls weaves a tapestry of unspeakable suffering and unexpected transcendence."--O: The Oprah Magazine The story begins in 1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith--instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.
Silent Leader: The Biography of Dr. Freddie L. Thomas
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Dr. Freddie L. Thomas was a historian and a scientist, an inventor an author, a book collector, a composer and a scholar, - who had mastered the art of teaching.The focus of the biography is not specifically centered on the scientific aspects of Dr. Thomas's life, but also the political and social environments of the communities he encountered.Equally significant, he reached out to young people, both from prominent and poor families (including gang members) to teach them the importance of obtaining a quality education. He spent an enormous amount of time with youth teaching them everything from basic rudiments of English and mathematics to complex mathematics, physics, philosophy, and religion. It was his way to seek out youngsters in the streets, get them interested in learning and then teaching them; if they were willing to apply themselves. He tutored all kinds of people in all kinds of places. Although, he never had a teaching certificate and never received any financial compensation in return. He didn't do it because he was after any gain of money or power. It was his natural way of living. He was, indeed, a Silent Leader.
Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of An American Hero
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Harriet Tubman is one of the giants of American history -- a fearless visionary who led scores of her fellow slaves to freedom and battled courageously behind enemy lines during the Civil War. Now, in this magnificent biography, historian Kate Clifford Larson gives us a powerful, intimate, meticulously detailed portrait of Tubman and her times. Drawing from a trove of new documents and sources as well as extensive genealogical data, Larson presents Harriet Tubman as a complete human being -- brilliant, shrewd, deeply religious, and passionate in her pursuit of freedom. A true American hero, Tubman was also a woman who loved, suffered, and sacrificed.
Frederick Douglass: Autobiographies
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Writing with the eloquence and fierce intelligence that made him a brilliantly effective spokesman for the abolition of slavery and equal rights, Douglass shapes an inspiring vision of self-realization in the face of monumental odds. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), published seven years after his escape, was written in part as a response to skeptics who refused to believe that so articulate an orator could ever have been a slave. A powerfully compressed account of the cruelty and oppression of the Maryland plantation culture into which Douglass was born, it brought him to the forefront of the anti-slavery movement and drew thousands, black and white, to the cause. In My Bondage and My Freedom (1855), Douglass expands the account of his slave years. With astonishing psychological penetration, he probes the painful ambiguities and subtly corrosive effects of black-white relations under slavery, and recounts his determined resistance to segregation in the North. The book also incorporates extracts from Douglass's speeches, including the searing "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July." Life and Times, first published in 1881, records Douglass's efforts to keep alive the struggle for racial equality during Reconstruction. John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe all feature prominently in this chronicle of a crucial epoch in American history. The revised edition of 1893, presented here, includes an account of his controversial diplomatic mission to Haiti. This volume contains a detailed chronology of Douglass's life, notes providing further background on the events and people mentioned, and an account of the textual history of each of the autobiographies.
African-American Who's Who: Past & Present, Greater Rochester Area
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African American Who's Who of the Greater Rochester Area provides the most comprehensive listing of successful business, social, community and political leaders in the Greater Rochester Area. African American Who's Who is more than a mere compilation of statistical information on successful and notable African Americans in the Greater Rochester Area. This book has three major objectives:
1. Provide a means of documenting contributions of African Americans in the area.
2. Identify and reinforce positive role models for African American children, and children of other backgrounds.
3. Provide a unique networking forum for Greater Rochester Area African Americans.
By understanding the accomplishments of their associates, Rochester area leaders can play a more positive role in developing new associations for mutual growth throughout all our communities.
Strike the Hammer: The Black Freedom Struggle in Rochester, New York, 1940 - 1970
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On July 24, 1964, chaos erupted in Rochester, New York. Strike the Hammer examines the rebellion by the city's Black community and rampant police brutality that would radically change the trajectory of the Civil Rights movement. After overcoming a violent response by State Police, the fight for justice, in an upstate town rooted in black power movements, was reborn. That resurgence owed much to years of organizing and resistance in the community. Laura Warren Hill examines Rochester's long Civil Rights history and, drawing extensively on oral accounts of the northern, urban community, offers rich and detailed stories of the area's protest tradition. Augmenting oral testimonies with records from the NAACP, SCLC, and the local FIGHT, Strike the Hammer paints a compelling picture of the foundations for the movement. Now, especially, this story of struggle for justice and resistance to inequality resonates. Hill leads us to consider the social, political, and economic environment more than fifty years ago and how that founding generation of activists left its mark on present-day Rochester.
Rochester Through Time
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Rochester is a waterborne city. The beauty and potential power of the Genesee River's Upper and Lower Falls drew co-founders Nathaniel Rochester, William Fitzhugh and Charles Carroll to this Seneca-inhabited region in the early 1800s. The two falls spurred local industrial development, while the addition of the Erie Canal in 1825 connected the nascent village to cities across the country and expanded its market, making Rochester one of America's first boom towns. Established as a city in 1834, Rochester has since reinvented itself on a number of occasions, earning a series of reputations ranging from the "Flower City" to the "World Image Center."
Black Mercuries: African American Athletes, Race, and the Modern Olympic Games
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In the modern Olympic Games, from 1896 through the present, African American athletes have sought to honor themselves, their race, and their nation on the global stage. But even as these incredible athletes have served to promote visions of racial harmony in the supposedly-apolitical Olympic setting, many have also bravely used the games as a means to bring attention to racial disparities in their country and around the world. In Black Mercuries: African American Athletes, Race, and the Modern Olympic Games, David K. Wiggins, Kevin B. Witherspoon, and Mark Dyreson explore in detail the varied experiences of African American athletes, specifically in the summer games. They examine the lives and careers of such luminaries as Jesse Owens, Rafer Johnson, Wilma Rudolph, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Michael Johnson, and Simone Biles, but also many African American Olympians who have garnered relatively little attention and whose names have largely been lost from historical memory. In recounting the stories of these Black Olympians, Black Mercuries makes clear that their superior athletic skills did not always shield them from the racial tropes and insensitivity spewed by fellow athletes, the media, spectators, and many others. Yet, in part because of the struggles they faced, African American Olympians have been extraordinarily important symbolically throughout Olympic history, serving as role models to future Black athletes and often putting their careers on the line to speak out against enduring racial inequality and discriminatory practices in all walks of life.
Civil Rights Movement: A History From Beginning to End
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The Civil Rights Movement in America is a broad term for the movement in the mid-twentieth century among and for the African American community in pursuit of equal protection and rights under the law. In reality, it began much earlier than the 1950s and continues until this day. What is more, it was about so much more than the extension of universal rights; the Civil Rights Movement is about the story of the long struggle to overcome the legacies of slavery and racism. It is a story of triumph over adversity and perseverance in the face of great hardship. Discover a plethora of topics such as: The Movement Begins, The Civil Rights Act, Bloody Sunday and the Fight to Vote, The Black Panthers, The Assassination of Martin Luther King, The Fight Continues: The 1970s and Beyond, and much more.
Tearing Down Fences: The Life of Alice Holloway Young
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Born in North Carolina in 1923, just three years after American women won the right to vote, Alice Holloway Young forged a barrier-breaking career in education. From her first day as a substitute teacher in 1952 to her years presiding over the board of trustees of Monroe Community College, Young was in the middle of it all. She was a tutor, teacher, principal, administrator, school integrator, community college leader. But Young is more – she is a first. She was one of the first five African American teachers in the Rochester City School District, itself a first in integration efforts. She was the district’s first African American vice principal and principal. She wrote Rochester’s Title 1 programs to integrate the schools ahead of federal mandates. And in 1961, she became the only woman and the only African American on the founding board of trustees of Monroe Community College.
Of Minnie the Moocher and Me
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From the back streets of Baltimore where he hustled as a kid, through the jazz clubs of Chicago in the raw and roaring twenties, to the Cotton Club, Hollywood, Paris, and beyond, here in his own words is the story of Cab Calloway - the man who made Minnie the Moocher a household heroine and became one of the most respected jazz musicians and best loved entertainers in America. He sang and danced like no other performer of his time. Tall, slender, handsome, and resplendent in a white zoot suit, his presence on stage was electric. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' he would sing. 'Hi-de-hi-de-ho,' the audience would answer. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' he would intone. 'Wah-de-do-de-way-de-ho,' they would roar back. And on it would go until the crowd was singing, stomping, and dancing in the aisles. It was the Great Depression, but he made them forget. More than that, he made them happy. That has always been Cab Calloway's profession - and the secret of his monumental success - knowing how to make people happy. He has entertained presidents and crowned heads of Europe, Mr., and Mrs. America (as they were then called) over network radio and the first integrated audiences in the South - as well as those still segregated by a rope down a concert hall. He has starred in Broadway shows, made scores of movies, and written hundreds of songs. He has worked - and played - with the greats of his profession from Louis Armstrong to Lena Horne, Duke Ellington to Al Jolson, Dizzy Gillespie to Bill Robinson.
African-American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865 - 1945
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African-American architects have been designing and building houses and public buildings since 1865. Although many of these structures survive today, the architects themselves are virtually unknown. This unique reference work brings their lives and work to light for the first time. Written by 100 experts ranging from architectural historians to archivists, this book contains 160 biographical, A-Z entries on African-American architects from the era of Emancipation to the end of World War II. Articles provide biographical facts about each architect, and commentary on his or her work. Practical and accessible, this reference is complemented by over 200 photographs and includes an appendix containing a list of buildings by geographic location and by architect.
Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor's Reflections on Race and Medicine
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When Damon Tweedy begins medical school, he envisions a bright future where his segregated, working-class background will become largely irrelevant. Instead, he finds that he has joined a new world where race is front and center. The recipient of a scholarship designed to increase black student enrollment, Tweedy soon meets a professor who bluntly questions whether he belongs in medical school, a moment that crystallizes the challenges he will face throughout his career. Making matters worse, in lecture after lecture the common refrain for numerous diseases resounds, "More common in blacks than in whites." Black Man in a White Coat examines the complex ways in which both black doctors and patients must navigate the difficult and often contradictory terrain of race and medicine. As Tweedy transforms from student to practicing physician, he discovers how often race influences his encounters with patients. Through their stories, he illustrates the complex social, cultural, and economic factors at the root of many health problems in the black community. These issues take on greater meaning when Tweedy is himself diagnosed with a chronic disease far more common among black people. In this powerful, moving, and deeply empathic book, Tweedy explores the challenges confronting black doctors, and the disproportionate health burdens faced by black patients, ultimately seeking a way forward to better treatment and more compassionate care.
Pulse of Perseverance: Three Black Doctors on Their Journey to Success
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What drove three young black men, each from America's most urban environments, to achieve their dreams of becoming doctors? The answer is in the Pulse of Perseverance. In 1998, Max Madhere, Pierre Johnson, and Joe Semien were three young, black, premedical students at Xavier University of Louisiana. Each was struggling with the demands of Xavier's rigorous curriculum, yet each was determined to succeed, even if the statistics, or the stereotypes about black men, said otherwise. By drawing on each other's determination and individual strengths, they forged a brotherhood and created a bond so strong that it would carry them through college, medical school, and well beyond. Now they've come together in Pulse to share their stories and encourage young people of color to pursue high-level careers. Max grew up in New York City and Washington D.C., Pierre in Chicago, and Joe in New Orleans. Underperforming schools, instability in the home, the trappings of street life, or simply being "expected" to fail could have derailed their aspirations, yet all three men refused to accept failure as an option. No obstacle was too great, no ambition too high. Today, Dr. Maxime Madhere, Dr. Pierre Johnson, and Dr. Joseph W. Semien Jr. are each board-certified physicians, as well as fathers and community mentors. Their message in Pulse is both simple and complex: no matter where you're from, no matter what "society" tells you, you can realize your dreams with hard work, determination, and God's guidance.
The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia E. Bath
Meet Dr. Bath -- the scientist who never lost sight of her dreams. As a girl coming of age during the Civil Rights Movement, Patricia Bath made it her mission to become a doctor. When obstacles like racism, poverty, and sexism threatened this goal, she persevered--brightening the world with a game-changing treatment for blindness. The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath is the second book in a brand new educational series about the inspirational lives of amazing scientists! In addition to the illustrated rhyming tale, you'll find a complete biography, fun facts, a colorful timeline of events, and even a note from Dr. Bath herself.
The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening
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The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening is the latest in the powerful line of The Black Librarian in America volumes. While previous editions we organized around library types, this edition is organized in four thematic sections: A Rich Heritage: Black Librarian History, Celebrating Collective and Individual Identity, Black Librarians across Settings, Moving Forward: Activism, Anti-Racism, and Allyship. Issues pertaining to Black librarians' intersectional identities, capacities, and contributions take center stage. The Black Librarian in America: Reflections, Resistance, and Reawakening is not only the first edition to be edited entirely by Black women, but it is officially produced by BCALA members in commemoration of the organization's 50th anniversary. Dr. Carla Hayden (14th Librarian of Congress) and Julius Jefferson, Jr. (president of the American Library Association for the 2020-2021 term) contribute moving foreword and afterword segments.
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The (Underground) Railroad in African American Literature
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The (Underground) Railroad in African American Literatureoffers a brief history of the African American experience of the railroad and the uses of railroad history by a wide assortment of twentieth-century African American poets, dramatists, and fiction writers. Moreover, this literary history examines the ways in which trains, train history, and legendary train figures such as Harriet Tubman and John Henry have served as literary symbols. This repeated use of the train symbol and associated train people in twentieth-century African American literature creates a sense of literary continuity and a well-established aesthetic tradition all too frequently overlooked in many traditional approaches to the study of African American writing. The metaphoric possibilities associated with the railroad and the persistence of the train as a literary symbol in African American writing demonstrates the symbol's ongoing literary value for twentieth-century African American writers - writers who invite their readers to look back at the various points in history where America got off track, and who also dare to invite their readers to imagine an alternate route for the future.
Encyclopedia of African American Literature
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Second Edition covers the entire spectrum of the African-American literary tradition, from the 18th-century writings of pioneers such as Olaudah Equiano and Phillis Wheatley, to 20th-century canonic texts, to the finest of today's best-selling authors and rap artists.
The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature
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Environmental Knowledge, Race, and African American Literature
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This open access book suggests new ways of reading nineteenth-century African American literature environmentally. Combining insights from ecocriticism, African American studies, and Foucauldian theory, Matthias Klestil examines forms of environmental knowledge in African American writing ranging from antebellum slave narratives and pamphlets to Charlotte Forten's journals, Booker T. Washington's autobiographies, and Charles W. Chesnutt's short fiction. The volume highlights how literary forms of environmental knowledge in the African American tradition were shaped by the histories of slavery and race, mainstream environmental writing traditions, and African American forms of expression and intertextuality. Turning to the Underground Railroad, debates over education and home-building, and the aesthetics of the pastoral and the georgic, Environmental Knowledge, Race, and African American Literature provides an original perspective on the African American ecoliterary traditionthat uncovers new facets of canonical and understudied texts and offers new directions for ecocriticism and African American studies.
Martin Luther King Jr. , Heroism, and African American Literature
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Examines how representations of Martin Luther King Jr.'s character and persona in works of African American literature have evolved and reflect the changing values and mores of African American culture African American writers have incorporated Martin Luther King Jr. into their work since he rose to prominence in the mid-1950s. Martin Luther King Jr., Heroism, and African American Literature is a study by award-winning author Trudier Harris of King's character and persona as captured and reflected in works of African American literature continue to evolve. One of the most revered figures in American history, King stands above most as a hero. His heroism, argues Harris, is informed by African American folk cultural perceptions of heroes. Brer Rabbit, John the Slave, Stackolee, and Railroad Bill--folk heroes all--provide a folk lens through which to view King in contemporary literature. Ambiguities and issues of morality that surround trickster figures also surround King. Nonconformist traits that define Stackolee and Railroad Bill also inform King's life and literary portraits. Defiance of the law, uses of indirection, moral lapses, and bad habits are as much a part of the folk-transmitted biography of King as they are a part of writers' depictions of him in literary texts. Harris first demonstrates that during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, when writers such as Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) were rising stars in African American poetry, King's philosophy of nonviolence was out of step with prevailing notions of militancy (Black Power), and their literature reflected that division. In the quieter times of the 1970s and 1980s and into the twenty-first century, however, treatments of King and his philosophy in African American literature changed. Writers who initially rejected him and nonviolence became ardent admirers and boosters, particularly in the years following his assassination. By the 1980s, many writers skeptical about King had reevaluated him and began to address him as a fallen hero. To the most recent generation of writers, such as Katori Hall, King is fair game for literary creation, no matter what those portrayals may reveal, to a point where King has become simply another source of reference for creativity. Collectively these writers, among many others, illustrate that Martin Luther King Jr. provides one of the strongest influences upon the creative worlds of multiple generations of African American writers of varying political and social persuasions.
Black Resonance: : iconic women singers and African American literature
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Ever since Bessie Smith's powerful voice conspired with the "race records" industry to make her a star in the 1920s, African American writers have memorialized the sounds and theorized the politics of black women's singing. In Black Resonance, Emily J. Lordi analyzes writings by Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Gayl Jones, and Nikki Giovanni that engage such iconic singers as Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Mahalia Jackson, and Aretha Franklin. Focusing on two generations of artists from the 1920s to the 1970s, Black Resonance reveals a musical-literary tradition in which singers and writers, faced with similar challenges and harboring similar aims, developed comparable expressive techniques. Drawing together such seemingly disparate works as Bessie Smith's blues and Richard Wright's neglected film of Native Son, Mahalia Jackson's gospel music and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, each chapter pairs one writer with one singer to crystallize the artistic practice they share: lyricism, sincerity, understatement, haunting, and the creation of a signature voice. In the process, Lordi demonstrates that popular female singers are not passive muses with raw, natural, or ineffable talent. Rather, they are experimental artists who innovate black expressive possibilities right alongside their literary peers. The first study of black music and literature to centralize the music of black women, Black Resonance offers new ways of reading and hearing some of the twentieth century's most beloved and challenging voices.
African American Literature
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This essential volume provides an overview of and introduction to African American writers and literary periods from their beginnings through the 21st century. This compact encyclopedia, aimed at students, selects the most important authors, literary movements, and key topics for them to know. Entries cover the most influential and highly regarded African American writers, including novelists, playwrights, poets, and nonfiction writers. The book covers key periods of African American literature--such as the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and the Civil Rights Era--and touches on the influence of the vernacular, including blues and hip hop. The volume provides historical context for critical viewpoints including feminism, social class, and racial politics. Entries are organized A to Z and provide biographies that focus on the contributions of key literary figures as well as overviews, background information, and definitions for key subjects.
Handy African American History Answer Book
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Walking readers through a rich but often overlooked part of American history, this compendium addresses the people, times, and events that influenced and changed African American history. An overview of major biographical figures and history-making events is followed by a deeper look at the development in the arts, entertainment, business, civil rights, music, government, journalism, religion, science, sports, and more. Mimicking the a broad range of the African American experience, showcasing interesting insights and facts, this helpful reference answers a wide variety of questions including "What is the significance of the Apollo Theater? What were the effects of the Great Depression on black artists? Who were some of America s early free black entrepreneurs? What is the historical role of the barbershop in the African American community?" and" What was Black Wall Street?" Blending trivia with historical review in an engaging question-and-answer format, this book is perfect for browsing and is ideal for history buffs, trivia fans, students and teachers and anyone interested in a better and more thorough understanding of history of black Americans."
African American History
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This three-volume contribution to the Magills Choice series offers comprehensive coverage of the history of African Americans in the United States from their first arrival in British North America in 1619 through the present day. The sets alphabetically arranged essays cover the full sweep of the rich history of African Americans, with articles on the major economic, political, social, and cultural events and developments of nearly four centuries.
African American History
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This set covers 125 iconic primary documents from the 1600s to the present. Each entry offers the full text of the document as well as an in-depth, analytical essay that places the document in its historical context. Among the sources included in the set are important legislative documents such as the Reconstruction era amendments; critical Supreme Court decisions; and iconic speeches and writings by leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama.
Interpreting African American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites
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In this landmark guide, nearly two dozen essays by scholars, educators, and museum leaders suggest the next steps in the interpretation of African American history and culture from the colonial period to the twentieth century at history museums and historic sites. This diverse anthology addresses both historical research and interpretive methodologies, including investigating church and legal records, using social media, navigating sensitive or difficult topics, preserving historic places, engaging students and communities, and strengthening connections between local and national history. Case studies of exhibitions, tours, and school programs from around the country provide practical inspiration, including photographs of projects and examples of exhibit label text. Highlights include: Amanda Seymour discusses the prevalence of "false nostalgia" at the homes of the first five presidents and offers practical solutions to create a more inclusive, nuanced history. Dr. Bernard Powers reveals that African American church records are a rich but often overlooked source for developing a more complete portrayal of individuals and communities. Dr. David Young, executive director of Cliveden, uses his experience in reinterpreting this National Historic Landmark to identify four ways that people respond to a history that has been too often untold, ignored, or appropriated--and how museums and historic sites can constructively respond. Dr. Matthew Pinsker explains that historic sites may be missing a huge opportunity in telling the story of freedom and emancipation by focusing on the underground railroad rather than its much bigger "upper-ground" counterpart. Martha Katz-Hyman tackles the challenges of interpreting the material culture of both enslaved and free African Americans in the years before the Civil War by discussing the furnishing of period rooms. Dr. Benjamin Filene describes three "micro-public history" projects that lead to new ways of understanding the past, handling source limitations, building partnerships, and reaching audiences. Andrea Jones shares her approach for engaging students through historical simulations based on the "Fight for Your Rights" school program at the Atlanta History Center. A exhibit on African American Vietnam War veterans at the Heinz History Center not only linked local and international events, but became an award-winning model of civic engagement. A collaboration between a university and museum that began as a local history project interpreting the Scottsboro Boys Trial as a website and brochure ended up changing Alabama law. A list of national organizations and an extensive bibliography on the interpretation of African American history provide convenient gateways to additional resources.
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