essay on black culture

Our Favorite Essays by Black Writers About Race and Identity

Books & Culture

A personal and critical lens to blackness in america from our archives.

It’s fitting that two of the first three essays in this roundup are centered on examining the Black American experience as one of horror. In a year when radical right-wing activists are truly leaning in, we’ve already seen record numbers of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the very real possibility of the end of Roe v. Wade, and more fervent redlining measures to keep Black people (and other marginalized communities) from voting. Gun violence is at an all time high, in particular mass shootings.

Since the success of Jordan Peele’s runaway hit film Get Out , there has been a steady rise in films depicting the Black American experience for the fraught, nuanced, dangerous life that it can be. This narrative isn’t entirely new, but this is the first time these films have gained critical acclaim and commercial attention. The reason is simple. Whatever the cause—social media, an increasingly diverse population—America can’t run from itself anymore. Our entertainment is finally asking the question that Black people have been asking for generations: In America, who is the real boogeyman?

Naturally, the discourse and critical analyses must follow suit. But it doesn’t stop there: the essays on this list span far and wide when it comes to subject matter, critical lens, and personal narrative. There are essays about Black friendship, the radical nature of Black people taking rest, and the affirmation of Black women writing for themselves, telling their own stories. Icons like Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison, and Gayle Jones get a deep dive, and we learn that we should always have been listening to Octavia Butler. This Juneteenth, I hope you’re taking a moment to reflect, on America’s troubled legacy, and to celebrate the ways that Black people continue to thrive.

Modern Horror Is the Perfect Genre for Capturing the Black Experience

Cree Myles writes about the contemporary Black creators rewriting the horror genre and growing the canon:

“Racism is a horror and should be explored as such. White folks have made it clear that they don’t think that’s true. Someone else needs to tell the story.”

Modern Narratives of Black Love and Friendship Are Centering Iconic Trios

Darise Jeanbaptiste writes about how Insecure and Nobody’s Magic illustrate the intricacy of evolving Black relationships:

“The power of the triptych is that it offers three experiences in addition to the fourth, which emerges when all three are viewed or read together.”

I Was Surrounded by “Final Girls” in School, Knowing I’d Never Be One

Whitney Washington writes that the erasure of Black women in slasher films has larger implications about race in America:

“Long before the realities of American life, it was slasher movies that taught me how invisible, ignored, and ultimately expendable Black women are. There was no list of rules long enough to keep me safe from the insidiousness of white supremacy… More than anything, slasher movies showed me that my role was to always be a supporting character, risking my life to be the voice of reason ensuring that the white girl makes it to the finish line.”

“Palmares” Is An Example of What Grows When Black Women Choose Silence

Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies , writes that Gayl Jones’ decades-long absence from public life illuminates the power of restorative quiet:

“These women’s silences should not be interpreted as a lack of understanding or awareness, but rather as an abundance of both, most especially the knowledge of what to keep close to the vest, and the implications for failing to do so. They know better than to explain themselves, their powers and their origins, their beliefs and reasons, their magic. These women are silent not because they don’t know anything. They are silent because they know better.”

Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” Showed Me How Race and Gender Are Intertwined

For the 50th anniversary of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye , Koritha Mitchell writes how the novel taught her that being a Black woman is more than just Blackness or womanhood:

“I didn’t have the gift of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of ‘intersectionality,’ but The Bluest Eye revealed how, in my presence, racism and sexism would always collide to produce negative experiences that others could dodge. It was not simply being Black or being dark-skinned that mattered; it was being those things while also being female.”

The Delicate Balancing Act of Black Women’s Memoir

Koritha Mitchell writes about how Michelle Obama’s Becoming illustrates larger tensions for Black women writing about themselves:

“In other words, when Black women remain enigmas while seeming to share so much, they create proxies at a distance from their psychic and spiritual realities because they are so rarely safe in public. Despite the release of her memoir, audiences will never be privy to who Michelle Obama actually knows herself to be, and that is more than appropriate.”

50 Years Later, the Demands of “The Black Manifesto” Are Still Unmet

Carla Bell writes about James Forman’s famous 1969 address, The Black Manifesto , and its contemporary resonances:

“But the Manifesto is as vital a roadmap in our marches and protests today as the day it was first delivered. We, black people in America, remain compelled by the power and purpose of The Black Manifesto, and we continue to demand our full rights as a people of this decadent society.”

You Should Have Been Listening to Octavia Butler This Whole Time

Alicia A. Wallace writes that Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower isn’t just a prescient dystopia—it’s a monument to the wisdom of Black women and girls:

Through her protagonist Lauren Olamina, Butler has been telling the world for decades that it was not going to last in its capitalist, racist, sexist, homophobic form for much longer. She showed us the way injustice would cause the earth to burn, and the importance of community building for survival and revolution. Through Parable of the Sowe r, we had a better future in our hands, but we did not listen.

The Book You Need to Fully Understand How Racism Operates in America

Darryl Robertson writes about Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning and its examination of the history of overt and covert bigotry:

“While How to Be an Antiracist is an informative and necessary read, it is his National Book Award-winning, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America that deserves extra attention. If we want to uproot the current racist system, it’s mandatory that we understand how racism was constructed. Stamped does just that.”

I Reject the Imaginary White Man Judging My Work

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts turns to Black writers as inspiration for resisting white expectations:

“…it doesn’t only matter that I’m a Black woman telling my story. What matters is the lens through which I’m telling it. And sometimes, many times, that lens, if we’re not careful, can be tainted by the ever-present consciousness of Whiteness as the default.”

Toni Morrison Gave My Own Story Back to Me

The incomparable literary powerhouse showed Brandon Taylor how to stop letting white people dictate the shape of his narrative:

“That’s the magic of Toni Morrison. Once you read her, the world is never the same. It’s deeper, brighter, darker, more beautiful and terrible than you could ever imagine. Her work opens the world and ushers you out into it. She resurfaced the very texture and nature of my imagination and what I could conceive of as possible for writing and for art, for life.”

Art Must Engage With Black Vitality, Not Just Black Pain

Jennifer Baker writes that books like The Fire This Time give depth and nuance to a reflection of Blackness in America:

“These essays provided a deeper connection because Black pain was part of the story; Black identity, self-recognition, our own awareness brokered every page. Black pain was not the sole criterion for the anthology’s existence.”

When Black Characters Wear White Masks

Jennifer Baker writes that whiteface in literature isn’t a disavowal of Blackness, but a commentary on privilege:

“Whiteface stories interrogate the mentality that it’s better to be white while examining how societal gains as well as societal “norms” inflict this way of thinking on Black people. Being white isn’t better, but, for some of these characters, it seems a hell of a lot easier, or at least preferable to dealing with racism.”

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Knowing the Past Opens the Door to the Future: The Continuing Importance of Black History Month

No one has played a greater role in helping all Americans know the black past than Carter G. Woodson, the individual who created Negro History Week in Washington, D.C., in February 1926. Woodson was the second black American to receive a PhD in history from Harvard—following W.E.B. Du Bois by a few years. To Woodson, the black experience was too important simply to be left to a small group of academics. Woodson believed that his role was to use black history and culture as a weapon in the struggle for racial uplift. By 1916, Woodson had moved to DC and established the “Association for the Study of Negro Life and Culture,” an organization whose goal was to make black history accessible to a wider audience. Woodson was a strange and driven man whose only passion was history, and he expected everyone to share his passion.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson, late 1940s

This impatience led Woodson to create Negro History Week in 1926, to ensure that school children be exposed to black history. Woodson chose the second week of February in order to celebrate the birthday of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is important to realize that Negro History Week was not born in a vacuum. The 1920s saw the rise in interest in African American culture that was represented by the Harlem Renaissance where writers like Langston Hughes, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Claude McKay—wrote about the joys and sorrows of blackness, and musicians like Louie Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford captured the new rhythms of the cities created in part by the thousands of southern blacks who migrated to urban centers like Chicago. And artists like Aaron Douglass, Richmond Barthé, and Lois Jones created images that celebrated blackness and provided more positive images of the African American experience.

Woodson hoped to build upon this creativity and further stimulate interest through Negro History Week. Woodson had two goals. One was to use history to prove to white America that blacks had played important roles in the creation of America and thereby deserve to be treated equally as citizens. In essence, Woodson—by celebrating heroic black figures—be they inventors, entertainers, or soldiers—hoped to prove our worth, and by proving our worth—he believed that equality would soon follow. His other goal was to increase the visibility of black life and history, at a time when few newspapers, books, and universities took notice of the black community, except to dwell upon the negative. Ultimately Woodson believed Negro History Week—which became Black History Month in 1976—would be a vehicle for racial transformation forever.

The question that faces us today is whether or not Black History Month is still relevant? Is it still a vehicle for change? Or has it simply become one more school assignment that has limited meaning for children. Has Black History Month become a time when television and the media stack their black material? Or is it a useful concept whose goals have been achieved? After all, few—except the most ardent rednecks - could deny the presence and importance of African Americans to American society or as my then-14 year old daughter Sarah put it, “I see Colin Powell everyday on TV, all my friends—black and white—are immersed in black culture through music and television. And America has changed dramatically since 1926—Is not it time to retire Black History Month as we have eliminated white and colored signs on drinking fountains?” I will spare you the three hour lesson I gave her.

I would like to suggest that despite the profound change in race relations that has occurred in our lives, Carter G. Woodson’s vision for black history as a means of transformation and change is still quite relevant and quite useful. African American history month, with a bit of tweaking, is still a beacon of change and hope that is still surely needed in this world. The chains of slavery are gone—but we are all not yet free. The great diversity within the black community needs the glue of the African American past to remind us of not just how far we have traveled but lo, how far there is to go.

While there are many reasons and examples that I could point towards, let me raise five concerns or challenges that African Americans — in fact — all Americans — face that black history can help address:

The Challenge of Forgetting

You can tell a great deal about a country and a people by what they deem important enough to remember, to create moments for — what they put in their museum and what they celebrate. In Scandinavia — there are monuments to the Vikings as a symbol of freedom and the spirit of exploration. In Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazis celebrated their supposed Aryan supremacy through monument and song. While America traditionally revels in either Civil War battles or founding fathers. Yet I would suggest that we learn even more about a country by what it chooses to forget — its mistakes, its disappointments, and its embarrassments. In some ways, African American History month is a clarion call to remember. Yet it is a call that is often unheeded.

Let’s take the example of one of the great unmentionable in American history — slavery. For nearly 250 years slavery not only existed but it was one of the dominant forces in American life. Political clout and economic fortune depended on the labor of slaves. And the presence of this peculiar institution generated an array of books, publications, and stories that demonstrate how deeply it touched America. And while we can discuss basic information such as the fact that in 1860 — 4 million blacks were enslaved, and that a prime field hand cost $1,000, while a female, with her childbearing capability, brought $1,500, we find few moments to discuss the impact, legacy, and contemporary meaning of slavery.

In 1988, the Smithsonian Institution, about to open an exhibition that included slavery, decided to survey 10,000 Americans. The results were fascinating — 92% of white respondents felt slavery had little meaning to them — these respondents often said “my family did not arrive until after the end of slavery.” Even more disturbing was the fact that 79% of African Americans expressed no interest or some embarrassment about slavery. It is my hope that with greater focus and collaboration Black History Month can stimulate discussion about a subject that both divides and embarrasses.

As a historian, I have always felt that slavery is an African American success story because we found ways to survive, to preserve our culture and our families. Slavery is also ripe with heroes, such as slaves who ran away or rebelled, like Harriet Tubman or Denmark Vessey, but equally important are the forgotten slave fathers and mothers who raised families and kept a people alive. I am not embarrassed by my slave ancestors; I am in awe of their strength and their humanity. I would love to see the African American community rethink its connection to our slave past. I also think of something told to me by a Mr. Johnson, who was a former sharecropper I interviewed in Georgetown, SC:

Though the slaves were bought, they were also brave. Though they were sold, they were also strong.

The Challenge of Preserving a People’s Culture

While the African American community is no longer invisible, I am unsure that as a community we are taking the appropriate steps to ensure the preservation of African American cultural patrimony in appropriate institutions. Whether we like it or not, museums, archives, and libraries not only preserves culture they legitimize it. Therefore, it is incumbent of African Americans to work with cultural institutions to preserve their family photography, documents, and objects. While African Americans have few traditions of giving material to museums, it is crucial that more of the black past make it into American cultural repositories.

A good example is the Smithsonian, when the National Museum of American History wanted to mount an exhibition on slavery, it found it did not have any objects that described slavery. That is partially a response to a lack of giving by the African American Community. This lack of involvement also affects the preservation of black historic sites. Though there has been more attention paid to these sites, too much of our history has been paved over, gone through urban renewal, gentrified, or unidentified, or un-acknowledged. Hopefully a renewed Black History Month can focus attention on the importance of preserving African American culture.

There is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.

The Challenge of Maintaining a Community

As the African American Community diversifies and splinters, it is crucial to find mechanisms and opportunities to maintain our sense of community. As some families lose the connection with their southern roots, it is imperative that we understand our common heritage and history. The communal nature of black life has provided substance, guidance, and comfort for generations. And though our communities are quite diverse, it is our common heritage that continues to hold us together.

The Power of Inspiration

One thing has not changed. That is the need to draw inspiration and guidance from the past. And through that inspiration, people will find tools and paths that will help them live their lives. Who could not help but be inspired by Martin Luther King’s oratory, commitment to racial justice, and his ultimate sacrifice. Or by the arguments of William and Ellen Craft or Henry “Box” Brown who used great guile to escape from slavery. Who could not draw substance from the creativity of Madame CJ Walker or the audacity and courage of prize fighter Jack Johnson. Or who could not continue to struggle after listening to the mother of Emmitt Till share her story of sadness and perseverance. I know that when life is tough, I take solace in the poetry of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, or Gwendolyn Brooks. And I find comfort in the rhythms of Louie Armstrong, Sam Cooke or Dinah Washington. And I draw inspiration from the anonymous slave who persevered so that the culture could continue.

Let me conclude by re-emphasizing that Black History Month continues to serve us well. In part because Woodson’s creation is as much about today as it is about the past. Experiencing Black History Month every year reminds us that history is not dead or distant from our lives.

Rather, I see the African American past in the way my daughter’s laugh reminds me of my grandmother. I experience the African American past when I think of my grandfather choosing to leave the South rather than continue to experience share cropping and segregation. Or when I remember sitting in the back yard listening to old men tell stories. Ultimately, African American History — and its celebration throughout February — is just as vibrant today as it was when Woodson created it 85 years ago. Because it helps us to remember there is no more powerful force than a people steeped in their history. And there is no higher cause than honoring our struggle and ancestors by remembering.

Lonnie Bunch Founding Director

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African American History and Culture in the United States

Mural of Carter G. Woodson on 9th St NW in Washington, D.C.

Wikimedia Commons

“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.” ―Carter G. Woodson

Our Teacher's Guide offers a collection of lessons and resources for K-12 social studies, literature, and arts classrooms that center around the achievements, perspectives, and experiences of African Americans across U.S. history.  Below you will find materials for teaching and learning about the perspectives of slaves and free African Americans during the American Revolution, the work of the Freedman’s Bureau during and after Reconstruction, the artistry of Jacob Lawrence, the reality faced by African American soldiers returning home after fighting in WWI, the songs and efforts of the Freedom Riders during the long civil rights movements, and the works of Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Maya Angelou.

Guiding Questions

Who is included in your curriculum and who can be added when teaching African American history?

What are the lasting contributions of African Americans to the culture and history of the United States?

How has change come about during the long civil rights movement?

The first national Negro History Week was organized by Carter G. Woodson in February 1926 to coincide with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass . As interest and advocacy for expanding the study of African American history developed, a desire to expand beyond just one week also grew. In 1970, students at Kent State University celebrated Black History Month from January to February of that year, and since 1976, each President of the United States has endorsed commemorating February as Black History Month across the country.

The resources and lessons provided below are organized chronologically to illustrate that the achievements, perspectives, and experiences of African Americans are important to social studies and history curricula all year long. Users will find connections between these materials and those provided in subsequent sections of this Teacher's Guide to develop cross-disciplinary learning activities and projects. 

Slavery and the Early Republic

Taking Up Arms and the Challenge of Slavery in the Revolutionary Era :  This lesson is designed to help students understand the transition to armed resistance and the contradiction in the Americans' rhetoric about slavery through the examination of a series of documents.

Slavery and the American Founding: The “Inconsistency not to be excused” :  Framed by the compelling question " How did the American founders' views on slavery shape the creation of the republic?", this lesson asks students to examine the views of American founders regarding slavery and evaluate the extent to which they reflect the principles of the American Revolution.  After the American Revolution: Free African Americans in the North :  What were the experiences of African-American individuals in the North in the years between the American Revolution and the Civil War? To what extent were freed slaves citizens in the newly independent nation? This lesson provides primary sources for students to analyze in order to evaluate these questions. 

Slavery in the Colonial North :  Philipsburg Manor, located in Sleepy Hollow, New York, is a historic site owned and operated by Historic Hudson Valley. The site tells the story of the 23 enslaved Africans who were the only full-time, year round residents of the Manor, and whose forced labor was the backbone of the Philipse’s international trading empire.

Twelve Years a Slave: Analyzing Slave Narratives :  What does Solomon Northup’s narrative reveal about the relation between slavery and social institutions such as marriage and the family? Why are slave narratives’ authenticity and truthfulness questioned? Examine the primary sources that became the basis for a major motion picture. 

Perspectives on the Slave Narrative :  Working with primary sources that provide insight into the lives of slave owners, slaves, abolitionists, students gather evidence to respond to the compelling question "What role did the slave narrative have both in historical and in literary traditions?"

Abolition and Reconstruction

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad :  In this lesson, students will comprehend the organizational structure of the Underground Railroad; learn about one of its most famous conductors, Harriet Tubman; and consider the legacy of the heroines and heroes of slavery resistance. 

Frederick Douglass's Narrative : Myth of the Happy Slave :  In this lesson, students analyze Douglass's first-hand account to see how he successfully contrasts myths with the reality of life under slavery.

From Courage to Freedom: Frederick Douglass’s 1845 Autobiography :  Frederick Douglass's 1845 narrative of his life is a profile in both moral and physical courage. In this lesson sequence, students examine how he contrasts reality with romanticism and powerfully uses imagery and rhetorical appeals to persuade the reader of slavery's evil. 

"I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common." —Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"

Frederick Douglass What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? :  This student activity brings together video and audio media, along with the text of Douglass's speech, to give students opportunities to discuss and deliberate who the 4th of July is for and the extent to which Douglass is justified in his position. 

David Walker vs. John Day: Two Nineteenth-Century Free Black Men :  David Walker, a free African American, invoked the Bible and the Declaration of Independence to challenge the inequities of American slavery in his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World  (1829). John Day, also a free African American, was a major proponent of colonization and an early Liberian colonist who argued that African Americans would never achieve equality in the United States. Through this lesson, students examine the conflicting perspectives over slavery, abolition, and equality.

Mission US 2: Flight to Freedom :  In Mission 2: “Flight to Freedom,” players take on the role of Lucy, a 14-year-old slave in Kentucky. As they navigate her escape and journey to Ohio, they discover that life in the “free” North is dangerous and difficult.

Teacher’s Guide: The Reconstruction Era :  This Teacher’s Guide provides compelling questions to frame a unit of study and inquiry projects, along with activity ideas on Reconstruction that include use of newspapers from the era and resources for social studies, ELA, and music education.

Jim Crow and War

Birth of a Nation, NAACP, and Balancing of Rights : Why did the NAACP challenge the showing of  Birth of a Nation ? The lesson asks students to analyze the efforts of the NAACP and evaluate the decision to not censor the film.  

NAACP's Anti-Lynching Campaigns in the 1920s : This lesson sequence engages students with the deeply serious issues of Jim Crow and lynching in the United States during the inter-war period. 

African American Soldiers in World War I: The 92nd and 93rd Division : Students combine their research using a variety of sources, including firsthand accounts, to develop a hypothesis evaluating contradictory statements about the performance of the 92nd Infantry Division in World War I.

African American Soldiers after WWI: Had Race Relations Changed? : Analyze archival photographs and archival newspaper accounts about race relations in the United States to evaluate different points of view about post-war riots in Chicago.

African Americans and the New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corp : Students considers documents that present the CCC from the perspective of black participants in order to evaluate the impact of this New Deal program on race relations in America.

Civil Rights and Now

The Green Book: African American Experiences of Travel and Place in the U.S. :  How have the intersections of race and place impacted U.S. history and culture? This inquiry-based lesson combines individual investigations with whole or small group analysis of primary sources and visual media.

Civil Rights and the Cold War :  This lesson plan attempts to dissolve the artificial boundary between domestic and international affairs in the postwar period to show students how we choose to discuss history. 

The Freedom Riders and the Popular Music of the Civil Rights Movement :  Through collaborative activities and presentations, students will find the meaning behind the music, and compare and contrast the major figures, documents, and events of the day to better understand the political and cultural messages. 

Malcolm X: A Radical Vision for Civil Rights : This essay examines the conflicting points of view surrounding how best to advance the civil rights movement in the U.S. during the 1960s with a comparative analysis of the philosophies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. 

Black Separatism and the Beloved Community: Malcolm X :  This lesson will contrast the respective aims and means of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. to evaluate how best to achieve black American progress in the 1960s.

JFK, Freedom Riders, and the Civil Rights Movement : Resources provided in this lesson support student analysis of t he critical role of activists in pushing the Kennedy Administration to face the contradiction between its ideals and the realities of federal politics.

Grassroots Perspectives on Civil Rights: Focus on Women : This essay not only looks at the work of the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), but specifically the role of women within the activism of this student-led civil rights organization. 

Revolution 67: Protest Why & How? : The intent of this lesson sequence is to help students comprehend and explain the changes in how the people of Newark, New Jersey viewed government and how those attitudes affected political change in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Competing Voices of the Civil Rights Movement : This lesson sequence presents the views of several important black leaders who shaped the debate over how to achieve freedom and equality in a nation that had long denied a portion of the American citizenry the full protection of their rights.

Let Freedom Ring: The Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. : Students will learn about the life and work of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. by listening to a brief biography, viewing photographs of the March on Washington, and reading a portion of King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

The Election of Barack Obama : This lesson focuses on the relationship between the Civil Rights Movement and Obama's election, but it also asks students why they think Barack Obama's election is "historic."

Poetry, literature, and plays make up the collection of resources and lessons provided below for K-12 literature and language arts courses. Users will find connections between these materials and those provided in subsequent sections of this Teacher's Guide to develop cross-disciplinary learning activities and projects. 

Teacher's Guide: The Works of Langston Hughes : This Teacher's Guide includes video of public readings, access to NEH supported projects dedicated to the work of Langston Hughes, and classroom ready materials for teaching his poetry.

The Poet's Voice: Langston Hughes and You : This lesson asks students to consider what is meant by voice in poetry, and what qualities have made the voice of Langston Hughes a favorite for so many people?

Teacher's Guide: Maya Angelou: A Phenomenal Woman :  This Teacher's Guide provides access to collections of poetry, lesson activity ideas, and multimedia resources to hear and see Dr. Angelou perform her poetry. 

Gwendolyn Brooks' Poem "We Real Cool" : In this lesson, students will closely analyze the poem's line breaks and the effect of enjambment on their reading and interpretation of the poem.

                The Pool Players.         Seven at the Golden Shovel.         We real cool. We            Left school. We         Lurk late. We         Strike straight. We         Sing sin. We            Thin gin. We         Jazz June. We            Die soon.

"A Raisin in the Sun": Whose American Dream? :  This interdisciplinary lesson includes a critical reading and analysis of the play, close examination of biographical and historical documents produced at different times during the long civil rights movement, and a variety of assessment options.

Toni Morrison's Beloved : For Sixty Million and More : Close reading and reflective activities guide thoughtful inquiry into the novel and its major themes, while also providing teachers and students with creative outlets for making connections with one of the great novels of the twentieth century.

Scottsboro Boys and  To Kill a Mockingbird : Two Trials for the Classroom : In this lesson, students will perform a comparative close reading of select informational texts from the Scottsboro Boys trials alongside sections from  To Kill a Mockingbird  to see how fictional “truth” both mirrors and departs from the factual experience that inspired it.

The resources and lessons provided below are designed for the study of art, music, and culture in K-12 classrooms. Users will find connections between these materials and those provided in subsequent sections of this Teacher's Guide to develop cross-disciplinary learning activities and projects. 

The Music of African American History : This lesson traces the long history of how African Americans have used music as a vehicle for communicating beliefs, aspirations, observations, joys, despair, resistance, and more across U.S. history.

Learning the Blues : Students take a virtual field trip to Memphis, Tennessee, one of the prominent centers of blues activities, and explore the history of the blues in the work of W. C. Handy and a variety of country blues singers whose music preserves the folk origins of this unique American art form.

Martin Puryear's Ladder for Booker T. Washington : Students examine Booker T. Washington’s life and legacy through Martin Puryear’s sculpture and consider how the title of Puryear’s sculpture is reflected in the meanings we can draw from it. 

Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series: Removing the Mask :  Focusing on composition, image, setting, characterization, and tone, while also analyzing the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Helene Johnson, students are invited to compare and contrast the works while considering how each work represents the life and changing roles of African Americans from the late nineteenth century to the Harlem Renaissance and The Great Migration. 

Romare Bearden's  The Dove : A Meeting of Vision and Sound : How do art and music reflect & inspire change in American society? This lesson asks students examine this and other questions about history, art, and culture.

Picturing Freedom: Selma to Montgomery in March, 1965 : After analyzing photojournalist James Karales's iconic photograph of the march, reading background material on it, and considering what the marchers might have thought and felt, students write and illustrate a postcard describing this civil rights event from a marcher's viewpoint.

The forced migration of Africans reshaped cultural practices, traditions, and identities. In this country, Black community building and identity formation have created a heritage found in music, language, cuisine, art, and more. This heritage is also apparent in the physical spaces built by Black Americans and significant to Black culture.   

Historically Black Towns and Settlements

The town of  Princeville, North Carolina  reflects a cultural landscape of the Black community following the  end of the Civil War . Founded in 1865 by formerly enslaved people, many of these refugees remained in the area and created their own settlement called Freedom Hill, a name derived from the location where a Union solider shared news about the  Emancipation Proclamation . In 1885, a Black carpenter named Turner Prince led the formal incorporation of the town, making Princeville  the first Black incorporated town in the United States. 

A flooded Princeville, North Carolina in the aftermath of destruction wrought by the Tar River in September 1999. 

Photo by Dave Saville/FEMA News Photo

For over a century, the town has symbolized African American determination and endurance. Despite Princeville’s continued adversity in the face of natural disasters, lack of government support, and white supremacy, residents share a strong sense of pride in their history and community. The town’s location in a floodplain has resulted in numerous destructive floods, and after each of these events residents have chosen to rebuild in the interest of communal preservation.  Although many of the town’s historic buildings have been destroyed by flooding, the cultural landscape of Princeville retains its historical significance through its ability to evoke a sense of place.

Schools and HBCUs

Schools offer not only a physical space for building community but also a framework for exploring identity. In segregated public school systems, educational facilities for Black children were underfunded compared to their white counterparts. Beginning in 1917, educator and Tuskegee Institute co-founder, Booker T. Washington, and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck, built more than 5,000 schools for African American children across the rural South. By 1928, one-third of the South’s rural Black school children and teachers attended or worked at a  Rosenwald School .6 When the landmark Supreme Court decision  Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka I and II (1954)  found  segregation in schools unconstitutional , Rosenwald Schools became obsolete as classrooms integrated.

Founded in 1870, Dunbar High School is the country’s first public high school for African Americans. Throughout the 20th century, Dunbar became renowned for its excellent academics, and some parents moved to Washington, D.C. specifically so their children could attend the school. Noted faculty include educator and activist  Mary Church Terrell , father of Black History Month  Dr. Carter G. Woodson , and Dunbar graduate Julia Evangeline Brooks, who was one of the pioneers of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Other celebrated graduates include businessman H. Naylor Fitzhugh, educator and activist Nannie Helen Burroughs, surgeon Charles R. Drew, lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston, and Air Force General Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Dunbar High School continues to educate generations of Black leaders to this day. 

Built in 1913, the Shiloh-Rosenwald School in Notasulga, Alabama was one of the six initial Rosenwald schools to provide education to African American children in the rural South. 

Photo by Rivers Langley

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are higher education institutions that primarily serve African American students. Although most of these colleges and universities are found in the South, there are over one hundred HBCUs in locations across the United States, both public and private institutions. Established in 1837, Cheyney University of Pennsylvania is the country’s oldest HBCU. Other HBCUs include Spelman College, Howard University, Xavier University, Tuskegee University, Hampton University, and Morehouse College. 

Burial Grounds

One of the country’s earliest and largest known Black cemeteries was rediscovered in 1991 in New York City. Before construction began for a thirty-four-story federal office building, the area was archeologically surveyed to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The excavation uncovered the burial site of more than 419 free and enslaved Africans laid to rest during the late 17th and 18th centuries. Recognizing the historical significance of the site, the Secretary of the Interior designated the  African Burial Ground  to the  National Register of Historic Places . In 2006, the site became a national monument. 

Historic Preservation

Although Black cultural landscapes are ubiquitous throughout the country, they are often neglected and erased from historical narratives. The lack of national recognition given to Black cultural landscapes stems from trends within the field of historic preservation that favor architectural significance over social histories embedded within a place. Even with recent additions, fewer than 8% of the sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States are associated with women, African Americans, Latinx Americans and other minority groups combined.  

Prior to 1973, there were only three Black historic sites designated across the entire United States:  the Frederick Douglass House in Washington, D.C. ,  the Booker T. Washington House in Virginia , and  the George Washington Carver House in Missouri . Following the Civil Rights Movement and leading up to the Bicentennial, activist groups like the  Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation  argued for the inclusion of Black history in the preserved, built environment and American history more broadly. Through a contract with the National Park Service, the Afro-American Bicentennial Corporation drastically increased Black representation in the National Register of Historic Places, designating historic sites such as the  Mary McLeod Bethune House  in Washington, D.C. and  W. E. B. Du Bois Boyhood Home  in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities continues to fund a wide array of projects, programs, and publications focused on telling the many stories of African Americans in the United States. The following collection supplements the resources provided above and extends the work that can be done across K-12 classrooms when teaching African American history and culture. 

Colored Conventions Project : From 1830 until well after the Civil War, African Americans gathered across the United States and Canada to participate in political meetings held at the state and national levels. A cornerstone of Black organizing in the nineteenth century, these “Colored Conventions” brought Black men and women together in a decades-long campaign for civil and human rights.

The Right to Love: The Case of Loving v. Virginia : This Humanities  magazine article tells the story of how  t he freedom to marry across racial lines was tested by a shy Virginia couple, who were very much in love.

August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand : This 2005 documentary tells the story of legendary playwright and 1999 NEH Humanities Award Medal recipient August Wilson. 

Voyages: The Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Database : Track the journeys of over 10-12.5 million Africans forced into slavery with this searchable database of passenger records from 36,000 trans-Atlantic slave ship voyages.

W.E.B. Du Bois Papers : This digitized collection of almost 95,000 items was completed by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst with the support of a  grant from the NEH .

Afropop Worldwide : This Peabody award-winning radio program and online magazine is dedicated to music from Africa and the African diaspora.

Thurgood Marshall Before the Court : Stephen Smith presents the story of Thurgood Marshall's remarkable career in this American Radio Works podcast and website.

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You are here, the idea of black culture, christopher freeburg on melville, aesthetics, inner life, and black lives matter..

When Christopher Freeburg , AM’99, PhD’06, was an undergraduate at Xavier University of Louisiana, his mentor, noted African American studies professor Joseph Brown, told him, “You can’t understand race in American literature unless you read [Herman] Melville.”

Freeburg listened—to some extent. “As an undergraduate I read what I wanted,” he says. “Often I was not reading at all.”

When he began his graduate work in English Language and Literature at UChicago, Freeburg focused on postcolonial readings of early modern literature. He wrote his master’s thesis on Othello , supervised by David Bevington , the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, and Richard Streier , the Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus.

He also read African American literature. And he noticed that again and again, writers he admired referenced Melville. Toni Morrison in Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992). C. L. R. James in Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways: The Story of Herman Melville and the World We Live In (1953). Ralph Ellison in The Collected Essays (1995). “This Melville guy just kept coming up.”

Eventually his work became the subject of Freeburg’s dissertation. Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge University Press, 2012) takes as a starting point Melville’s observation about Nathaniel Hawthorne: “that blackness in Hawthorne … that so fixes and fascinates me.” Freeburg finds plenty of “blackness” in Melville’s own work, by which he means “the violence of subjects’ experience of existential limits and the destruction of subjects’ social viability.”

While Melville scholarship from the 1950s through the 1970s focused on his notions of evil and depravity, Freeburg says, in the 1980s and 1990s critics were more interested in racial conflicts and slavery. His work brings the two strands together. Freeburg contends that in Melville, moments of blackness arise during encounters between people of different races—for example between Ishmael and Queequeg, or Pip and Ahab, in Moby-Dick . “Melville stages it in so many different ways,” says Freeburg, “with traumatic moments centering on people of color and otherness.”

Freeburg, an associate professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, teaches American and African American literature. He writes about that side of his life in “Teaching Literature and the Bitter Truth about Starbucks,” published in the Modern Language Association’s journal Profession (2012). In the essay, Freeburg repeats a question he’s often heard from the student-baristas: “What good is what I teach, and is it relevant to the real world?”

At a time when the value of the humanities is routinely questioned, Freeburg argues in the essay, “We need a stronger sense of vocation in our courses.” Students need to understand that “critical thinking is not just stating your opinion,” he says. For any text, they should be able to “come up with a serious question and a number of ways to answer that question.”

In his critical work, Freeburg frequently cites his own teachers, such as Lauren Berlant , the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor; Kenneth Warren , the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor; and former UChicago professor Gerald Graff, AB’59. “The workshop system was invaluable,” says Freeburg. “You learn how to answer really tough questions about your work. There were times when I completely disagreed with my professors, but nine times out of ten, they were right.”

Freeburg recently completed “Black Aesthetics and Inner Life,” a book manuscript that looks at “major moments of depersonalization in African American literature and culture,” he says. The book begins with a shocking image, The Lynching of Frank Embree, July 22, 1899 —shocking because the man in the photo is still very much alive and looks directly at the camera.

“The photograph of Embree provokes a broader question that this book explores: How can places where personhood vanishes simultaneously uncover a forceful sense of the person?” Freeburg writes. “Embree’s remarkable gaze into the camera…affirms his desire to create meaning that is his alone.”

In the book, Freeburg examines major African American artists “whose work is aimed directly or indirectly at specific black political goals,” he says, and tries to get at “the rich, deep, mysterious person, the ongoing and elastic sense of the individual—that part of the black tradition.” At the same time, Freeburg says, “we have to realize the utter ambiguity or the limits of what we can not know about black subjects is an equal, if not more forceful, part of black aesthetics.”

Freeburg takes a similar approach in his current book project, which has the working title “Slavery, Performance, and the Idea of Black Culture.” Scholars often look at slavery in an overly simplistic way, he says, reducing their lives to either fighting against white masters or succumbing to them. His analysis “shows the inadequacy of those categories,” he says. “The life and mind of a slave was just as mysterious and complex as anyone else’s life.”

And Freeburg continues to do work on Melville. He’s organizing a Melville Society panel, called "Melville and Black Lives Matter," at the 2017 MLA conference. Suggested topics include racial violence, police brutality, prison reform, totalitarianism, New World slavery, and US–Middle East turmoil. Freeburg hopes to discuss “what it is in Melville’s work so that black writers have continually turned to him,” he says. “It’s absolutely crucial.”

a special place

This article is very nice. My experience with friends and faculty at U of C was rewarding to say the least. My grandmother finished the certificate program in SSA and my father also attended classes in the Divinity school. I grew up a lot in Hyde Park. It is a special place indeed.

Prof. Freeburg's work on Melville

I'm delighted to read about Prof. Freeburg's insightful readings of Melville and of Melville's assessments of how "black lives matter." I for one cannot teach 19th C African American literature without assigning Melville's BENITO CERENO. BTW, I teach at Yale (since 1974) and I graduated from UHigh in 1962.y

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Black History Essay Topics

• Writing Essays
• Writing Research Papers
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

Black history is full of fascinating stories, rich culture, great art, and courageous acts that were undertaken within unthinkable circumstances. While Civil Rights events are the most common themes in our studies, we should resist equating Black history only with Civil Rights-era history. This list contains 50 prompts that might lead you into some interesting and little-known information about Black American history.

Note: Your first challenge in studying some of the topics below is finding resources. When conducting an internet search, be sure to place quotation marks around your search term (try different variations) to narrow your results.

• Black American newspapers
• Black Inventors
• Black soldiers in the American Revolution
• Black soldiers in the Civil War
• Buffalo Soldiers
• Buying time
• Camp Logan Riots
• Clennon Washington King, Jr.
• Coffey School of Aeronautics
• Crispus Attucks
• Domestic labor strikes in the South
• Finding lost family members after emancipation
• First African Baptist Church
• Formerly enslaved business owners
• Freedom's Journal
• Gospel music
• Gullah heritage
• Harlem Hellfighters
• Harlem Renaissance
• Harriet Tubman
• Historically Black Colleges
• History of rock-and-roll
• Jumping the broom
• Manumission papers
• Maroon villages in the eighteenth century
• Motown Records
• Multi-cultural pirate ships
• Narratives by Enslaved People
• Otelia Cromwell
• Ownership of property by enslaved people
• Purchasing freedom
• Ralph Waldo Tyler
• Register of Free Persons of Color
• Secret schools in antebellum America
• Sherman's March followers
• Susie King Taylor
• The Amistad
• The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
• The Communist Party (involvement)
• The Great Migration
• The Haitian Revolution
• Tuskegee Airmen
• Underground Railroad
• Urban enslavement (related to buying time)
• Wilberforce College, Ohio
• 67 Causal Essay Topics to Consider
• Topical Organization Essay
• 100 Persuasive Essay Topics
• 501 Topic Suggestions for Writing Essays and Speeches
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• 50 Argumentative Essay Topics
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African American History & Culture; with Memoirs, Essays, and More

A selection of books about African American and Black history and culture, with emphasis on books by Black authors. For more books and resources on Racial Equity and Social Justice, see the resource guide Racial Equity Resources . For more new and/or significant books highlighting the African American experience, sent to your inbox, subscribe to the African American Culture Insider Newsletter .

Art, Music, & Literature | Civil Rights & Social Justice | Economics, Business, & Leadership | Food, Health & Wellness | History | Humor | Memoirs & Essays | Sports

Art, Music, and Literature

A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

A Little Devil in America is an urgent project that unravels all modes and methods of Black performance, in this moment when Black performers are coming to terms with their value, reception, and immense impact on America. With sharp insight, humor, and heart, Abdurraqib examines how Black performance happens in specific moments in time and space--midcentury Paris, the moon, or a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio. Abdurraqib's prose is entrancing and fluid as he leads us along the links in his remarkable trains of thought. A Little Devil in America considers, critiques, and praises performance in music, sports, writing, comedy, grief, games, and love.

Available to download: eBook Audio

Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers

A sweeping overview of blacks in film from the silent era through Black Panther, with striking photos and an engrossing history by award-winning author Donald Bogle.

The Obama Portraits

A richly illustrated celebration of the paintings of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley and First Lady Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald.

Never Givin' Up: The Life and Music of Al Jarreau

Finally "discovered" in 1975 (at age 35) by Warner Brothers Records, he recorded 13 albums in 20 years for Warners. He became a "star" in the early '80s, crafting best-selling albums with a unique combination of jazz, pop and R&B. Ultimately, he was the first artist to win Grammy Awards in those three categories. Stardom in the world of popular music can be fleeting, however, and as records sales waned, Al had to adjust to new, sometimes harsh, realities. Al Jarreau follows Al's career and music through contemporary articles, filmed documentaries and extensive interviews with family members, fellow musicians, friends and associates.

August Wilson: A Life

The first authoritative biography of August Wilson, the most important and successful American playwright of the late 20th century, by a theater critic who knew him.

Tupac Shakur: The Authorized Biography

In Tupac Shakur , author and screenwriter Staci Robinson-who knew Tupac as a young man and who was entrusted by his mother, Afeni Shakur, to write his biography-peels back the myths and unpacks the complexities that have shadowed Tupac's existence. With exclusive access to his private notebooks, letters, unpublished lyrics and uncensored conversations with those who knew and loved him best, Robinson tells a powerful story of a life defined by politics and art, and a man driven by equal parts brilliance and impulsiveness. It is a story of a mother and son bound together by a love for each other and for their people, and the relationship that endured through their darkest times. It is a political story that begins in the whirlwind of the 60's Civil Rights Movement, and takes you through a young artist's awakening to rage and purpose in the nineties era of Rodney King. It is a story of dizzying success and its devastating consequences. And, of course, it is the story of his music, his timeless message that will never die as it continues to touch and inspire past, present and future generations

Supreme Sirens: Iconic Black Women Who Revolutionized Music

Through exquisite photographs, personal interviews, short biographies, and career milestones, Reynolds details how these women's music and careers have become the soundtrack of our lives. Supreme Sirens shares the power and wisdom of women who are at the forefront of entertainment; women who have overcome racial prejudices and redefined contemporary notions of Black women by breaking glass ceilings and tearing down barriers in the recording studio and on stage and screen. Book 3 in series.

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir

As the front man for the sixties pop-rock-funk band Sly and the Family Stone, a songwriter who created some of the most memorable anthems of the 1960s and 1970s ("Everyday People," "Family Affair"), and a performer who electrified audiences at Woodstock and elsewhere, Sly Stone's influence on modern music and culture is indisputable. But as much as people know the music, the man remains a mystery. After a rapid rise to superstardom, Sly spent decades in the grip of addiction. Now he is ready to relate the ups and downs and ins and outs of his amazing life in his memoir.

Black Women Writers at Work

Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose contributions to the literary world laid the foundation for many who have come after. Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.

Easily Slip into Another World: A Life in Music

An autobiography of one of the towering figures of contemporary American music and a powerful meditation on history, race, capitalism and art.

Civil Rights and Social Justice

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

In a bold and innovative argument, a rising legal star shows readers how the mass incarceration of a disproportionate number of black men amounts to a devastating system of racial control. Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow laws, the system that once forced African-Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts and the criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and deprives an entire segment of the population of their basic rights.

The Fire Next Time

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Available to download: eBook Audio

White Space, Black Hood: Opportunity Hoarding and Segregation in the Age of Inequality

A meditation on how America protects and overinvests in "white space" and disinvests, surveils, and stereotypes in "the Hood;" Cashin calls for abolition of these anti-Black processes and bold new investment to repair poor Black neighborhoods and our broken race relations.

Between the World and Me

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation's history and current crisis. Available to download: eBook Audio

Freedom is a Constant Struggle

In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world. Available to download: eBook Audio

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a white woman who asked what she could do for the cause, 'Nothing.' Michael Eric Dyson believes he was wrong. Now he responds to that question. If society is to make real racial progress, people must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted. Available to download: Audio

Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader

Eyewitness accounts of a pivotal episode in American history, including murder, suspense, and extraordinary courage by ordinary people.

Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow

The abolition of slavery after the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked 'a new birth of freedom' in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African-Americans after slavery combated it by articulating a vision of a 'New Negro' to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to the United States. Available to download: eBook

The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History

The Tuskegee Student Uprising tells what happened when the Black Power movement arrived at the institution founded by the nation's most famous black educator, Booker T. Washington.

How to Be an Antiracist

In this book, Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism, and he asks us to think about what an antiracist society might look like, and how we can play an active role in building it. Available to download: eBook Audio

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America

The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Available to download: eBook

When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir

A memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement explains the movement's position of love, humanity, and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement's activists while calling for essential political changes. Available to download: eBook Audio

March Book 1

March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis' lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis's personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. Also look for volumes 2 & 3. Available to download: eBook

They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement

A behind-the-scenes account of the #blacklivesmatter movement shares insights into the young men and women behind it, citing the racially charged controversies that have motivated members and the economic, political, and personal histories that inform its purpose.

Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

For four years Monique W. Morris chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged--by teachers, administrators, and the justice system--and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond.

The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America

Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.

Mighty Justice: My Life in Civil Rights

Trailblazing African American civil rights attorney Dovey Johnson Roundtree, who remains largely unknown to the American public despite her significant and influential achievements, recounts her inspiring life story that speaks movingly and urgently to our racially troubled times.

Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking 0f Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin

A taut, intense narrative about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the largest manhunt in American history--a sixty-five-day search that led investigators to Canada, Portugal, and England.

Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights

Acclaimed historian Gretchen Sorin reveals how the car--the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility--has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. She recounts the creation of a parallel, unseen world of black motorists, who relied on travel guides, black only businesses, and informal communications networks to keep them safe.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice. Available to download: eBook Audio

I Can't Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street

A work of riveting literary journalism that explores the roots and repercussions of the infamous killing of Eric Garner by the New York City police.

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History , award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. Available to download: eBook

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks About Race

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time , as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

Economics, Business, and Leadership

Minority Leader: How To Lead From the Outside and Make Real Change

A personal and empowering blueprint from one of America's rising Democratic stars for outsiders who seek to become the ones in charge.

Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy

In this analysis of her family’s year-long public pledge to "buy black," Maggie Anderson draws on economic research and social history as well as her personal story to show why the black economy continues to suffer and issues a call to action to all of us to do our part to reverse this trend.

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism

A groundbreaking history demonstrating that America's economic supremacy was built on the backs of slaves.

Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward

When Valerie Jarrett interviewed a promising young lawyer named Michelle Robinson in July 1991, neither knew that it was the first step on a path that would end in the White House. Jarrett joined the White House team on January 20, 2009 as the Obamas' personal adviser and departed with the First Family on January 20, 2017. In this memoir, she shares her optimistic perspective on the importance of leadership and the responsibilities of citizenship in the twenty-first century, inspiring readers to lift their own voices.

How We Can Win: Race, History and Changing the Money Game that's Rigged

In How We Can Win, Jones delves into the impacts of systemic racism and reveals how her formative years in Chicago gave birth to a lifelong devotion to justice. Here, in a vital expansion of her declaration, she calls for Reconstruction 2.0, a multilayered plan to reclaim economic and social restitutions--those restitutions promised with emancipation but blocked, again and again, for more than 150 years. And, most of all, Jones delivers strategies for how we can effect change as citizens and allies while nurturing ourselves--the most valuable asset we have--in the fight against a system that is still rigged.

Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires

The astonishing untold history of America's first black millionaires - former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring Twenties - self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison. Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of smart, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success.

Food, Health, and Wellness

An acclaimed graphic novel that offers a poignant glimpse into black women's lives and coming-of-age stories as seen across a crowded, ammonia-scented hair salon while ladies gossip and bond over the burn.

I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays

Bassey Ikpi explores her life--as a Nigerian-American immigrant, a black woman, a slam poet, a mother, a daughter, an artist--through the lens of her mental health and diagnosis of bipolar II and anxiety. Her remarkable memoir in essays implodes our preconceptions of the mind and normalcy as Bassey bares her own truths and lies for us all to behold with radical honesty and brutal intimacy. Available to download: Audio

Sweet Home Cafe Cookbook: A Celebration of African American Cooking

A celebration of African American cooking with 109 recipes from the National Museum of African American History and Culture's Sweet Home Café. Available to download: eBook

Notes From a Young Black Chef: A Memoir

By the time he was twenty-seven years old, Kwame Onwuachi (winner of the 2019 James Beard Foundation Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year) had opened--and closed--one of the most talked about restaurants in America. He had launched his own catering company with twenty thousand dollars that he made from selling candy on the subway, yet he'd been told he would never make it on television because his cooking wasn't "Southern" enough. In this inspiring memoir about the intersection of race, fame, and food, he shares the remarkable story of his culinary coming-of-age. Available to download: Audio

Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm’s Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land

The first comprehensive "how to" guide for aspiring African-heritage growers to reclaim their dignity as agriculturists and for all farmers to understand the distinct, technical contributions of African-heritage people to sustainable agriculture.

Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by One Hundred Years of Cooking in a Black Family

A mother-daughter duo reclaims and redefines soul food by mining the traditions of four generations of black women and creating 80 healthy recipes to help everyone live longer and stronger.

Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get on the Mat, Love Your Body

Jessamyn Stanley, a yogi who breaks all the stereotypes, has built a life as an internationally recognized yoga teacher and award-winning Instagram star by combining a deep understanding for yoga with a willingness to share her personal struggles in a way that touches everyone who comes to know her. Now she brings her body-positive, emotionally uplifting approach to yoga in a book that will help every reader discover the power of yoga and how to weave it seamlessly into his or her life.

The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies.

Black Food: Stories, Art and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora

In this stunning and deeply heartfelt tribute to Black culinary ingenuity, Bryant Terry captures the broad and divergent voices of the African Diaspora through the prism of food. With contributions from more than 100 Black cultural luminaries from around the globe, the book moves through chapters exploring parts of the Black experience, from Homeland to Migration, Spirituality to Black Future, offering delicious recipes, moving essays, and arresting artwork.

Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking

Throughout her career, Toni Tipton-Martin has shed new light on the history, breadth, and depth of African American cuisine. She's introduced us to black cooks, some long forgotten, who established much of what's considered to be our national cuisine. After all, if Thomas Jefferson introduced French haute cuisine to this country, who do you think actually cooked it? In Jubilee , Tipton-Martin brings these masters into our kitchens with more than 100 recipes.

Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine

One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans. Available to download: eBook

The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South

A memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces the paths of the author's ancestors (black and white) through the crucible of slavery to show its effects on our food today.

A Black Women’s History of the United States

A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are--and have always been--instrumental in shaping our country.

Empire of Cotton: A Global History

The empire of cotton was, from the beginning, a fulcrum of constant global struggle between slaves and planters, merchants and statesmen, workers and factory owners. Beckert makes clear how these forces ushered in the world of modern capitalism, including the vast wealth and disturbing inequalities that are with us today. The result is a book as unsettling as it is enlightening: a book that brilliantly weaves together the story of cotton with how the present global world came to exist.

Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

An acclaimed historian's definitive biography of the most important African-American figure of the 19th century, Frederick Douglass, who was to his century what Martin Luther King, Jr. was to the 20th century. Available to download: eBook

She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman

A lively, informative, and illustrated tribute to one of the most exceptional women in American history--Harriet Tubman--a heroine whose fearlessness and activism still resonates today. Available to download: eBook

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner relates the dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom.

The Last Negroes at Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the Eighteen Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever

The untold story of the Harvard class of '63, whose Black students fought to create their own identities on the cusp between integration and affirmative action.

The Black Church: This is Our Story, this is Our Song

Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today's political landscape. We emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative: as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community's most critical personal and social issues.

And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK

A timeline and chronicle of the past fifty years of black history in the U.S. in more than 350 photos.

The Hemingses of Monticello: an American Family

This epic work tells the story of the Hemingses, a slave family whose close blood ties to American president Thomas Jefferson had been systematically edited out from American history until very recently. This book sets the family's compelling saga against the backdrop of Revolutionary America, Paris on the eve of its own revolution, 1970s Philadelphia and plantation life at Monticello. Available to download: Audio

Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter

This long-overdue biography reestablishes William Monroe Trotter's essential place next to Douglass, Du Bois, and King in the pantheon of American civil rights heroes.

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval

Traces a time of radical transformation of black life in early twentieth-century America, revealing how a large number of black women forged relationships, families, and jobs that were more empowered and typically indifferent to moral dictates.

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo”

A major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God , with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade--abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States. Available to download: eBook Audio

The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family

Bettye Kearse--a descendant of an enslaved cook and, according to oral tradition, President James Madison--shares her family story and explores the issues of legacy, race, and the powerful consequences of telling the whole truth. 

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

A gripping true story of racism, murder, rape, and the law that brings to light one of the most dramatic court cases in American history, and offers a rare and revealing portrait of Thurgood Marshall that the world has never seen before. Available to download: eBook Audio

We Could Not Fail: The First African Americans in the Space Program

The Space Age began just as the struggle for civil rights forced Americans to confront the long and bitter legacy of slavery, discrimination, and violence against African Americans. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson utilized the space program as an agent for social change, using federal equal employment opportunity laws to open workplaces at NASA and NASA contractors to African Americans while creating thousands of research and technology jobs in the Deep South to ameliorate poverty. We Could Not Fail tells the inspiring, largely unknown story of how shooting for the stars helped to overcome segregation on earth.

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race

The phenomenal true story of the black female mathematicians at NASA at the leading edge of the feminist and civil rights movement, whose calculations helped fuel some of America's greatest achievements in space--a powerful, revelatory contribution that is essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern America. Available to download: eBook Audio

The Blood of Emmett Till

This extraordinary bestseller reexamines a pivotal event of the civil rights movement--the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till--"and demands that we do the one vital thing we aren't often enough asked to do with history: learn from it" ( The Atlantic ). Available to download: Audio

Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance

Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson's famed plays about noble but doomed working-class strivers. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. Mark Whitaker’s captivating portrait of this unsung community is a vital addition to the story of black America.

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration

In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Available to download: eBook

Harriet Jacobs: A Life

In this remarkable biography, Jean Fagan Yellin recounts the full adventures of Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , one of the most widely read slave narratives of all time, before and after slavery.

I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé

A timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul‑searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity. Available to download: Audio

The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-up Comedian

A humorous, well-informed take on the world today, tackling a wide range of issues, such as race relations; fatherhood; the state of law enforcement today; comedians and superheroes; right-wing politics; left-wing politics; failure; Bell’s interracial marriage; white men; his up-bringing by very strong-willed, race-conscious, yet ideologically opposite parents; his early days struggling to find his comedic voice, then his later days struggling to find his comedic voice; why he never seemed to fit in with the Black comedy scene . . . or the white comedy scene; how he was a Black nerd way before that became a thing; how it took his wife and an East Bay lesbian to teach him that racism and sexism often walk hand in hand; and much, much more.

I Can’t Make This Up: Life Lessons

Superstar, comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include, the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and listeners have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in themselves since Old Yeller. Available to download: eBook

F*ck Your Diet: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me

A collection of laugh-out-loud funny and insightful essays that explore race, feminism, pop culture, and how society reinforces the message that we are nothing without the perfect body.

How Not to Get Shot: And Other Advice from White People

Legendary African American activist-comedian D. L. Hughley uses satire to draw attention to white privilege and racial injustice, sardonically offering an illustrated how-to guide for black people, full of insight from white people, about how to act, dress, speak, walk, and drive in the safest manner possible. Available to download: eBook

Wow, No Thank You: Essays

From Samantha Irby--beloved author of New York Times bestseller We Are Never Meeting in Real Life- -a rip-roaring, edgy and unabashedly raunchy new collection of hilarious essays.

The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

A collection of humorous essays on what it's like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits, and black as cool. Available to download: eBook

You Can’t Touch My Hair and Other Things I Still Have to Explain

Phoebe Robinson is a stand-up comic, which means that comedic fodder runs through her everyday life. And as a black woman in America, she asserts, sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to deal with the nonsense you are handed every day. And Robinson has experienced her fair share over the years, not lest the people who ask her whether they can touch her hair. All. The. Time. Now, she's ready to take these topics to the page in an utterly modern essay collection: one that examines our cultural climate and skewers our biases. Available to download: eBook Audio

Here For It, Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays

R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went--whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city--he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an "other" through the lens of his own life experience.

How to Be Black

Baratunde Thurston shares his 30-plus years of expertise in being black, with helpful essays like "How to Be the Black Friend," "How to Speak for All Black People," "How To Celebrate Black History Month," and more, in this satirical guide to race issues--written for black people and those who love them. Available to download: eBook

We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True

In this moving collection of thought provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame.

Memoirs and Essays

White Girls

One of The New Yorker 's boldest cultural critics deftly weaves together his brilliant analyses of literature, art, and music with fearless insights on race, gender, and history. The result is an extraordinary, complex portrait of "white girls," as Als dubs them--an expansive but precise category that encompasses figures as diverse as Truman Capote and Louise Brooks, Malcolm X and Flannery O'Connor.

Mom & Me & Mom

The story of Maya Angelou's extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother. Available to download: eBook Audio

Fire Shut Up in My Bones: A Memoir

A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past. Available to download: eBook

The Yellow House

A brilliant, haunting and unforgettable memoir from a stunning new talent about the inexorable pull of home and family, set in a shotgun house in New Orleans East. Available to download: eBook

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

From a powerful new voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female in middle-class white America. Available to download: eBook

A Piece of Cake

Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, this memoir is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contemporary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination.

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

In this inspiring memoir, the award-winning playwright and bestselling author reminisces on the art of juggling marriage, motherhood, and politics while working to become a successful writer.

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower

So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting.

Thick: And Other Essays

In these eight piercing explorations on beauty, media, money, and more, Tressie McMillan Cottom-award-winning professor and acclaimed author-embraces her venerated role as a purveyor of wit, wisdom, and Black Twitter snark about all that is right and much that is wrong with this thing we call society.

Angela Davis: An Autobiography

Angela Y. Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements. Fifty years after its original publication, the author revisits her life's story in print.

Brother, I’m Dying

A powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to the author's heart--her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.

Black Nerd Problems

The creators of the popular website Black Nerd Problems bring their witty and unflinching insight to this engaging collection of pop culture essays on everything from Mario Kart and The Wire to issues of representation and police brutality across media.

Available to download: Audio

The Book of (More) Delights

A collection of essays in which the author discusses the small and large things that delight him.

There Will Be No Miracles Here

The testament of a boy and a generation who came of age as the world came apart--a generation searching for a new way to live.

You Don't Know Us Negroes and other Essays

The essays in this essential collection are grouped thematically and cover a panoply of topics, including politics, race and gender, and folkloric study from the height of the Harlem Renaissance to the early years of the Civil Rights movement. Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer's work, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer's development and a window into her world and time.

Quietly Hostile

The success of Irby's career has taken her to new heights. She fields calls with job offers from Hollywood and walks the red carpet with the iconic ladies of Sex and the City. But, behind all that new-found glam, Irby is just trying to keep her life together as she always had. She gets turned away from a restaurant for wearing ugly clothes, she goes to therapy and tries out Lexapro, gets healed with Reiki, explores the power of crystals, and becomes addicted to QVC. Making light of herself as she takes us on an outrageously funny tour of all the details that make up a true portrait of her life, Irby is once again the relatable, uproarious tonic we all need.

Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family

An electrifying, dazzlingly written reckoning and an essential addition to the national conversation about race and class that takes its name from the calculations award-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson made to survive the Portland, Oregon of his youth.

This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America

From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins' highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today.

How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir

In this stunning coming-of-age memoir, Jones tells the story of a young, black, gay man from the South as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes, desires, and fears. Through a series of vignettes that chart a course across the American landscape, Jones draws readers into his boyhood and adolescence--into tumultuous relationships with his family, into passing flings with lovers, friends, and strangers. Each piece builds into a larger examination of race and queerness, power and vulnerability, love and grief: a portrait of what we all do for one another--and to one another--as we fight to become ourselves. Available to download: eBook Audio

Heavy: An American Memoir

In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. Available to download: eBook Audio

How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South

The way to the promised land is not a trip from poverty to success, but the journey to finding beauty even in dark places. In searching prose, McCaulley chronicles his lifelong effort to understand the community that shaped him and the struggle they endured to make a home for their loved ones. McCaulley raises questions that implicate us all: How do we make sense of America's triumphs and misdeeds? Where might God be found in trauma and miracle that is Black life in the American South? Written with profound honesty and compassion, How Far to the Promised Land is a weighty examination of our most pressing societal issues and the hope that keeps us alive

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America

From a leading journalist and activist comes a brave, beautifully wrought memoir, a story of beauty and hope-and an honest reckoning with family, with place, and with what it means to be free. Available to download: eBook

The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

Arguably the most celebrated and revered writer of our time now gives us a new nonfiction collection--a rich gathering of her essays, speeches, and meditations on society, culture, and art, spanning four decades.

In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America, she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private. A deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations. Available to download: eBook Audio

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South

Rembert's work has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the country, profiled in the New York Times and more, and honored by Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative. In Chasing Me to My Grave, he relates his life in prose and paintings--vivid, confrontational, revelatory, complex scenes from the cotton fields and chain gangs of the segregated south to the churches and night clubs of the urban north. This is also the story of finding epic love, and with it the courage to revisit a past that begs to remain buried, as told to Tufts philosopher Erin I. Kelly.

Available to download: eBook

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education

An unflinching account of what it means to be a young black man in America today, and how the existing script for black manhood is being rewritten in one of the most fascinating periods of American history.

We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America

The critically lauded author provides an existential look at life in low-income black communities, while also offering a new framework for how to improve the conversations occurring about them.

Let It Bang: A Young Black Man’s Reluctant Odyssey into Guns

The quest, funny and searing, of a young man black man learning to shoot--a fascinating odyssey into race, guns, and self-protection in America.

Arthur Ashe: A Life

The first comprehensive, authoritative biography of American icon Arthur Ashe--the Jackie Robinson of men's tennis--a pioneering athlete who, after breaking the color barrier, went on to become an influential civil rights activist and public intellectual. Available to download: eBook

The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

The story of sports post-9/11, once neutral but now embedded with deference toward the military and police, colliding with the political reawakening of the black athlete in post-Ferguson America.

The Last Hero: the Life of Henry Aaron

In the thirty-four years since his retirement, Henry Aaron's reputation has only grown in magnitude: he broke existing records (rbis, total bases, extra-base hits) and set new ones (hitting at least thirty home runs per season fifteen times, becoming the first player in history to hammer five hundred home runs and three thousand hits). But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball's immortal figures. Available to download: eBook

Driven: From Homeless to Hero, My Journeys On and Off Lambeau Field

The Green Bay Packers legendary NFL receiver, all-time receptions and yards leader for the Green Bay Packers, and Dancing with the Stars champion looks back on his life and career.

Ali: A Life

The definitive biography of an American icon, from a New York Times best-selling author with unique access to Ali's inner circle.

Tigerland: 1968-1969, a City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing

Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history,, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio did something no team from one school had ever done before: they won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way eased a painful racial divide throughout the state and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success. In Tigerland, Wil Haygood gives us a spirited and stirring account of this improbable triumph and takes us deep into the personal lives of these local heroes. At the same time, he places the Tigers' story in the context of the racially charged sixties, bringing in such national figures as Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Richard Nixon, all of whom had a connection to the teams and a direct effect on their mythical season.

Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South

Based on more than eighty interviews, this fast-paced, richly detailed biography of Perry Wallace, the first African American basketball player in the SEC, digs deep beneath the surface to reveal a more complicated and profound story of sports pioneering than we've come to expect from the genre. Perry Wallace's unusually insightful and honest introspection reveals his inner thoughts throughout his journey.

I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond

The football star made famous in the hit film "The Blind Side" reflects on how far he has come from the circumstances of his youth. While many people are now familiar with Oher's amazing journey, this is the first time he shares his story in his own words. Available to download: eBook

Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story

In 1968, Wyomia Tyus became the first person ever to win gold medals in the 100-meter sprint in two consecutive Olympic Games, a feat that would not be repeated for twenty years or exceeded for almost fifty. Tigerbelle chronicles Tyus's journey from her childhood as the daughter of a tenant dairy farmer through her Olympic triumphs to her post-competition struggles to make a way for herself and other female athletes.

The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

Pulitzer finalist Colson Whitehead's hilarious memoir of his search for meaning at high stakes poker tables, which the author describes as " Eat, Pray, Love for depressed shut-ins."

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Being Black In America

Being black in america: 'we have a place in this world too'.

Maquita Peters

In response to several high-profile deaths of African Americans in recent months, some black people are saying that enough is enough. Clockwise from top left: Michael Martin, Tunisian Burks, Sam Tyler, Alexander Pittman, the Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel, Brandon Winston, Donna Ghanney and Mark Turner. NPR hide caption

In response to several high-profile deaths of African Americans in recent months, some black people are saying that enough is enough. Clockwise from top left: Michael Martin, Tunisian Burks, Sam Tyler, Alexander Pittman, the Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel, Brandon Winston, Donna Ghanney and Mark Turner.

Editor's note: NPR will be continuing this conversation about Being Black in America online and on air.

As protests continue around the country against systemic racism and police brutality, black Americans describe fear, anger and a weariness about tragic killings that are becoming all too familiar.

"I feel helpless. Utterly helpless," said Jason Ellington of Union, N.J. "Black people for generations have been reminding the world that we as a people matter — through protests, sit-ins, boycotts and the like. We tried to be peaceful in our attempts. But as white supremacy reminds us, their importance — their relevance — comes with a healthy dose of violence and utter disrespect for people of color like me."

County Officials Rule George Floyd Death Was A Homicide

For more than a week, tens of thousands of people have thronged cities nationwide, staging protests. The demonstrations were triggered by the death of 46-year-old George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Floyd, a black man, died while a white police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

The protests also reflect outrage over the shooting death of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery while he was jogging through a Glynn County, Ga., neighborhood in February. Three white men were arrested in connection with his death, which was caught on video. Tensions also have flared in response to the death of Breonna Taylor , a 26-year-old black woman who was shot and killed in her apartment by police in Louisville, Ky., in March.

Jason Ellington, a 41-year-old marketing professional, says he is angry — and also feels helpless. Jason Ellington hide caption

Some protests have become violent , marred by looting, clashes with police and countless arrests, and several state officials have enacted curfews. This amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a disproportionate number of deaths among African Americans, exacerbating challenges in these uncertain times for a people often racially profiled and long oppressed.

Cities are burning. Not just with fires but with anger.

Black people say they are frustrated. Fearful. Fatigued.

"I'm not going to lie — I am angry," said Ellington, a 41-year-old marketing professional who has a 10-year-old daughter. "As a black man in America, it is already hard enough that we have to fight within ourselves to become a better person, but there are countless forces working outside of ourselves that are also working against us and have been for generations."

Ellington is one of nearly 200 people who shared with NPR what it's like to be black in America right now.

Nicholas Gibbs of Spring, Texas, is particularly concerned about his two toddler sons growing up.

"To be black in America, you have to endure white supremacy. You have to fear the police. To be American, you have the luxury of saying, 'They should have complied!' To be black in America, you have to hope someone recorded your compliance because you may no longer be around to defend yourself," the 39-year-old said.

Alexander Pittman, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said there's a huge amount of anxiety on a daily basis regarding any contact with police even if you are doing nothing wrong or illegal, because you know it could escalate out of control.

"Being a black man in America, you know you live by a different set of rules," Pittman said.

He recounted what happened to him a few years ago when he'd just moved to Hollywood, Fla., and went out one evening to walk his dog, Marley.

Code Switch

Ta-nehisi coates looks at the physical toll of being black in america.

"I was confronted by several Hollywood police officers. I was also roughed up and detained before being let go," the 32-year-old said, adding that no charges were filed against him.

As dad to a 4-year-old and a public school teacher, Pittman said he tries to have real conversations with his students and son about the role that race has played in the U.S. historically — and today.

"It's hard, because on one hand I don't believe in riots, looting and violence, but on the other hand, when is enough, enough? We need real, tangible policing reform on a national level, and that has largely been ignored."

The Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel says being black in America is about playing her part to help alleviate racial inequality. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Centre County hide caption

Many black mothers in America expressed fear for the boys and men in their lives.

"I'm weary of living in a constant state of anxiety and fear because I have black and brown men in my life: my son, brothers, friends, grandson, son-in-law and father. I'm bone tired of existing in a system that tells me every damn day that me and my people do not matter," said the Rev. Carol Thomas Cissel of State College, Pa.

A mother, minister and grandmother, Cissel said her "DNA will continue to scream in agony" because black men and boys are not safe in America.

"I will try to hold the pain and soul wounds of my people. I will mourn because I know wishes, words or rituals cannot keep my son and grandson alive."

Jami Vassar, a 34-year-old fourth-generation military veteran from Aberdeen, N.C., can relate. As a mom of two teenage sons, she worries about their well-being and tries to keep them close.

"They are my gentle giants, but they are big black boys, and I have to remind them that the world doesn't see them as kids and there is real danger just for existing," she said.

Vassar said although she comes from a family of proud Americans who boast a long line of service to the country, the world sees them as black first. Just last week while driving with her younger son, she said he expressed fears about getting pulled over. He'll be getting his driver's license soon.

"I had to tell him I'm afraid when I get pulled over. My family has served in every war since War World I. They served before African Americans could vote, and we continue to serve even though we are not always seen as equals. It hurts," she said.

Arbery Shooting Sparks Racism, Corruption Questions About Georgia County

Another mom, Edith Jennings of Holyoke, Mass., said she too worries about her two adult sons. Last week on an unusually balmy spring day in New England, while driving through a small area with one of them, they noticed two young white men standing by their bicycles, laughing and talking to each other.

"My son, who is 28 years old and now a new father of his own son, said, 'It must be nice to wake up in the morning and feel safe, to not be afraid to go out and do what you have to do for the day, to hang out with your friends, not be afraid of the police. I wonder what that is like.' When I heard that, I was almost in tears," Jennings said.

Having grown up in the 1960s and '70s and remembering a story her mom told about watching the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses in her yard, Jennings said she never expected to have to deal with such racial issues when she had her own kids.

"Now here we are in the 21st century and I have a 2-month-old grandson, and I wonder if he, as a young black man, will survive in America. I feel like black men and women are an endangered species here in America. That's what's it like being black in America now!"

Protesters in Miami hold signs during a rally Sunday in response to the recent death of George Floyd. Ricardo Arduengo/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Protesters in Miami hold signs during a rally Sunday in response to the recent death of George Floyd.

Donna Ghanney of Brooklyn, N.Y., grew up during the same era as Jennings. She recalls white men standing on the corner and calling out the N-word as she passed by.

"All you had to be was a person of color to feel the hatred when you went near a white man. A feeling of fear, oppression, being disliked, having no rights, and the fear of being killed with a lie trailing behind the death," she said.

Other mothers shared their concern that nothing will change.

"People are tired of empty protests that fail to deliver change. Some care more about dogs than the lives of black and brown people in America," said Nicole Green of Melbourne, Fla., who said her childhood memories are filled with relatives being pulled over or being harassed by police.

Free Browning said the situation in the country is disheartening, particularly for a person who suffers from anxiety and depression.

"As a single mom of three and an Atlanta native, I'm angry, horrified, scared, hurt and uneasy. While I don't condone the destruction of many of the businesses here in Atlanta, I have lost my concern to care."

7 Shot At Louisville Protest Calling For Justice For Breonna Taylor

Others said being black in America can feel like being at war.

"I recently purchased two guns and plan on purchasing more," said 62-year-old Bruce Tomlin of Albuquerque, N.M.

Tomlin said he dealt with a lot of racial tension living for more than three decades in Texas. While he says Albuquerque is different, he travels often out of state as a truck driver. After watching the video of Arbery being shot, he said he wants to be able to defend himself.

"I feel every person of color in America should be armed. I feel that the current administration and the 1% are guiding us into a civil war," he said. "I also feel that it is open season on black males in particular. People of color are being eliminated by police and disease. I plan on fighting until the end."

Michael Martin of Chicago said he feels like there's nothing he can do to protect himself and his family.

"We can't go jogging without worrying about being lynched; we can't go bird-watching without having the police called on us. Our children can't go outside and play without us worrying about them being gunned down and labeled 'suspects.' We can't sleep in our own beds without being executed," he said. "The same rights and protections that our white peers are afforded are not afforded to us. We can't arm ourselves without being labeled thugs and shot."

Some people feel conflicted. Helpless. Ambivalent. Mentally drained.

"Last night I cried to my partner," said Glenn Smith of Brooklyn, N.Y. "I cried because I realized how proud I am to be an American, a New Yorker and a Brooklynite. I cried because in those feelings of pride, I'm faced with feelings of contradiction. Why are cops brutally killing people that look like me?"

An Avid Birder Talks About His Conflict In Central Park That Went Viral

Cheyenne Amaya of Woodbridge, Va., said police-involved deaths no longer surprise her.

"They are so a part of my normal life now that I feel a bit desensitized. I still have to continue to try to put a brave face on while feeling angry, hurt, sad, anxious and tired. It's been like this my whole life," she said. "We were taught at a young age to make ourselves appear less threatening and to always keep our hands up. It's tiring trying to live your life while constantly in fear of someone shooting you down or accusing you of something you didn't do."

Waddell Hamer of Indianapolis, who recently graduated with his master's degree in social work, said: "The mental health of blacks during this time is fragile. I know mine is. COVID, racism and poverty to name a few. How do I tend to the mental health of blacks during this time?"

Still, amid these myriad emotions expressed by black Americans, some spoke of hope.

Cissel, the minister from Pennsylvania, said that for "all my people to be safe, the racist fabric of this country must be ripped to shreds and rewoven."

She's ready to do her part.

"I will light a candle, hope it blossoms into a steady flame of peace and say these words aloud: 'We are included. We belong. We are here.' For, just like you — entitled by birthright, we have a place in this world too."

NPR would like to hear about your reaction to these incidents and your personal experience as a black person in America. Please share your story here or in the form below, and a reporter might contact you.

• African Americans
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African-Americans & the Black Experience: African-American Identity & Culture

• African-American Identity & Culture
• Databases & Books for African-American Research
• Milestones in Black History
• Desegregation & Civil Rights
• Structural Racism
• Civil Disobedience and Rights
• Black Lives Matter and Police Killings
• Art, Literature, Film, & Videos
• Audio & Music
• Statistics and Data
• African American Online Lectures
• African Americans in the U.S.
• The Great Migration

If the problem of the twentieth century was, in W. E. B. Du Bois’s famous words, ‘the problem of the color line,’ then the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of colorblindness, the refusal to acknowledge the causes and consequences of enduring racial stratification. — Naomi Murakawa, Princeton University

African Americans  (also referred to as  Black Americans  or  Afro-Americans ) are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa.     In the United States, the terms are generally used for Americans with at least partial Sub-Saharan African ancestry.

Most African Americans are the direct descendants of captive Africans who survived the slavery era within the boundaries of the present United States, although some are—or are descended from—immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations. As an adjective, the term is usually spelled  African-American .

African American history starts in the 17th century with indentured servitude in the American colonies and progresses onto the 2008 and 2012 election of Barack Obama, an African American, as the 44th President of the United States. Between those landmarks there were other events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, that were faced by African Americans. Some of these were: slavery, reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States,   racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

African Americans and their contributions to American society and culture are honored each February with Black History Month. Black Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States and form the second largest racial group after whites in the United States.

• A. P. Marshall African American Oral History Archive . Recorded by historian A.P. Marshall in the 1980s, these interviews span several generations and help to tell the rich and varied story of African-Americans in Ypsilant, Michigani. Each discussion illuminates eras of profound social change and offers an intimate look into the social, home and political life of an historic Michigan community.
• " American Black Journal ." Documenting over thirty years of Detroit history from African American perspectives, this collection of programs by Detroit Public Television includes interviews, round-table discussions, field-produced features and artistic performances featuring African Americans, many of who are among the nation’s most recognized and controversial figures, and provides the visual and audio context of key debates and discussions surrounding African American history, culture, and politics.
• African-American Odyssey . This Special Presentation of the Library of Congress exhibition,  The African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship , showcases the Library's incomparable African-American collections. The presentation is a highlight of what is on view in this major black history exhibition and a glimpse into the Library's vast African-American collections.
• John Franklin Hope: Imprint of an American Scholar . John Hope Franklin was one of the most well-known and influential scholars of his era. Over the Course of his nearly 70 years as a historian, Franklin molded hundreds, if not thousands, of students to raise scholastic standards within his field and broke countless professional barriers along the way. Franklin was also the definition of a public intellectual, continuously lending his scholarship and influence to causes beyond the walls of academia. This exhibition explores his indelible imprint on the classroom, the institution, his public and private relationships, and his life's work of utilizing history and knowledge to cultivate a better human society.
• The Making of African American Identity, Pt. 1: 1500-1865  : A collection of primary resources—historical documents, literary texts, and works of art—thematically organized with notes and discussion questions. Themes covered include : Freedom, Enslavement, Community, and Identity.
• 101 African American Firsts
• About.Com's African American History Page .
• About.Com's African American Women's History Page .
• African American History And Culture  courtesy of the Encyclopedia Smithsonian.
• African American History in the United States .  A compilation of articles and resources posted in the World History Archives.
• African American History Month  Portal by the Library of Congress.  February is African American History Month.  The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of African Americans who struggled with adversity to achieve full citizenship in American society.
• Umbra: Search African American History A free digital platform and widget that brings together content documenting African American history and culture in order to enable the creation of new works—research projects, scholarship, curricula, art of all kinds—that illuminate parts of our history that have not been enough broadly accessible.
• The Great Migration Between 1910 and 1930, approximately 1.6 million African Americans left the South to pursue opportunities in the Northern and Midwestern states. This exodus is known as the Great Migration, and was the first phase of an African American migration that would continue until 1970. Courtesy of Lakisha Odlum and the Digital Public Library of America.
• Goin' North: Stories From the First Great Migration to Philadelphia Between 1910 and 1930, the African-American population of Philadelphia skyrocketed, from around 85,000 to nearly 220,000 in the early years of the Great Depression. Captured in oral history interviews conducted in the 1980s with aging Philadelphians who participated in and witnessed the Great Migration firsthand, these stories tell of both individual lives and collective experiences adapting to a new home in the "City of Brotherly Love."
• Business, Professional, and Military Life

" Meet Hercules, One of America's Early Celebrity Chefs ".  Daniel Crown, Atlas Obscura, February 21, 2018. Heralded for his food, the enslaved cook headed the first presidential kitchen and might be considered the first American celebrity chef.   Needless to say, he was a slave who eventually fled, seeking his freedom.

• TheRoot.com .   Provides an unflinching examination of political and cultural news through insightful debate and commentary from both established and emerging black thought-leaders. The Root features unvarnished analysis of important issues in the black community and engages anyone looking for diverse viewpoints that are provocative, savvy and smart.  Also provides a  Facebook page .  100 Amazing Facts About the Negro is a series by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of  The Root .
• The Making of African American Identity, Pt. 1: 1500-1865  : A collection of primary resources—historical documents, literary texts, and works of art—thematically organized with notes and discussion questions. Themes covered include : Freedom, Enslavement, Community, Identity, and Emancipation.  Courtesy of the National Humanities Center, 2009.
• The Making of African American Identity, Pt. 2: 1865-1917  : A collection of primary resources—historical documents, literary texts, and works of art—thematically organized with notes and discussion questions. Themes covered include : Freedom, Identity, Institutions, Politics, and Forward.  Courtesy of the National Humanities Center, 2006.
• The Making of African American Identity, Pt. 3: 1917-1968  : A collection of primary resources—historical documents, literary texts, and works of art—thematically organized with notes and discussion questions. Themes covered include : Segregation, Migration, Protest, Community, and Ovecome? Courtesy of the National Humanities Center, 2007.
• Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African American Newspapers .  Curated by Matt Delmont, Arizona State University.
• 7 of the Most unrecognized Women in Black History

• African American Identity in the Gilded Age .   Examine the tension experienced by African-Americans as they struggled to establish a vibrant and meaningful identity based on the promises of liberty and equality in the midst of a society that was ambivalent towards them and sought to impose an inferior definition upon them....The primary sources used are drawn from a time of great change that begins after Reconstruction's brief promise of full citizenship and ends with the First World War's Great Migration, when many African-Americans sought greater freedoms and opportunities by leaving the South for booming industrial cities elsewhere in the nation....The central question posed by these primary sources is how African-Americans were able to form a meaningful identity for themselves, reject the inferior images fastened upon them, and still maintain the strength to keep "from being torn asunder." Using the primary sources presented here, look for answers that bring your ideas together in ways that reflect the richness of the African-American experience.  Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
• African American Lives 2  / PBS.  Building on the program's theme of searching for lost history, the Web site for African-American Lives 2 provides information about the series, background on the research, scholarship, and science, and resources for people to learn more about their own family history and genealogy.  Also listed under biography.
• African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource . This exhibit was done in conjunction with the publication of  The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture . This site highlights four areas - Colonization, Abolition, Migrations, and the WPA.
• African-American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship .  This exhibition showcases the incomparable African American collections of the Library of Congress. Displaying more than 240 items, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings, this is the largest black history exhibit ever held at the Library, and the first exhibition of any kind to feature presentations in all three of the Library's buildings.
• African American Religion : A Documentary  History Project . African-American Religion: A Documentary History Project was founded in 1987 and is headquartered at Amherst College. Its goal is to produce a comprehensive history of African-American religion, from the earliest African-European encounters along the west coast of Africa in the mid-fifteenth century to the present day. This history will be presented in a three-part, multi-volume series that will include representative documents and interpretive commentary. This work, provisionally titled  African-American Religion: A Historical Interpretation with Representative Documents , is under contract to the  University of Chicago Press  and will begin appearing in 2010. David W. Wills, Amherst College.

African American Sites in the Digital Collections  of the Library of Congress: Contributions by African Americans to the arts, education, industry, literature, politics and much more are well represented in the vast collections of the Library of Congress. The digital collections are no exception. American Memory, the flagship of the Library's digital collections, online exhibits and other areas of the Library's Web site provide a broad range of digitized materials pertaining to the African American experience.

African-Americans - Biography, Autobiography and History  : a compilation of resources by the Avalon Project sponsored by the Yale Law School.

Business and Professional Life

• The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company . The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was founded in Durham, N.C. in 1898 and is the oldest currently active African American-owned insurance company in the United States.
• North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company Archives .
• African American History Program (AAHP) Database of Distinguished American Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers .  African Americans have made significant contributions to science, engineering, and medicine. Many of these researchers, scholars, and practitioners had to overcome tremendous obstacles. New knowledge born from their brilliance and perseverance has benefited humankind.  Over 25 years ago, the African American History Program (AAHP) began as a staff-based initiative in the form of a portrait collection created to raise awareness of the contributions made by an often marginalized group within our society.  Now expanded in the form of an online database, it includes African American citizens of the United States who have made significant contributions in science, engineering, or medicine. Individuals within the database have demonstrated distinguished achievements in original research, important publications or other contributions to theory and practice in a specific field, or unusual accomplishments in pioneering new and developing areas of science, medicine, or technology. Also included in the list are historical figures from other fields that paved the way legally, politically, and socially for African Americans that followed.  Through their work, these individuals have made a positive and significant impact in their fields and on society.  Sponsored jointly by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine.

Military Service

• African American Soldiers in World War I . This primary source set emphasizes the experiences of African American doughboys during the war while also highlighting how they were perceived by white Americans. Use the sources to determine how racism and patriotism shaped the experiences of the African American soldiers. Courtesy of Jamie Lathan and the Digital Public Library of America.
• Brave Deeds are Proudly Spoken Of: African American Military Service . Highlights some of the experiences and personal stories of African American men and women who have served in the U.S. military.
• Harry S. Truman and Civil Right s . This collection focuses on President Harry S. Truman's decisions on civil rights. The collection includes 72 documents totaling 342 pages covering the years 1948 through 1953. Supporting materials include photographs, oral history transcripts, a subject guide to archival materials and other links. Includes President Truman's decision to desegregate the U.S. Armed Forces.
• African American Involvement in the Vietnam War . : Welcome to the virtual library of materials published about African-American involvement in the Vietnam War. "Involvement" is defined as those who served and those who protested. Although this site represents a sizable collection of full-text articles, papers, other documents (including government documents), Web links, sound files, photographs, speeches, poetry, and film references, the majority of the site consists of annotated bibliographic citations.
• African Americans in Cryptologic History , part of the  Center for Cryptologic History  (NSA)
• Negro League Baseball .    Between the end of the Civil War and 1890, some African American baseball players played alongside white players in minor and major leagues. After 1890, Jim Crow segregation dominated the sport until Jackie Robinson integrated major league baseball in 1947. Consequently African Americans formed their own professional baseball leagues commonly and collectively known as Negro League baseball. During its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, the Negro Leagues drew large crowds and fielded over thirty teams throughout the East Coast and Midwest.In this primary source set, students will view original photographs, listen to oral history recordings, and read historical texts to gain a better understanding of of the lives and experiences of Negro League baseball players.  Courtesy of Jamie Lathan and the Digital Public Library of America.
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum . Located in Kansas City at 1616 East 18th Street

Circulation Coordinator

Attribution

Much of this material was originally compiled by Erik Ponder, African Studies Librarian at Michigan State University. 

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• Last Updated: Apr 8, 2024 7:24 PM
• URL: https://libguides.moval.edu/black-experience

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Names and labels

The early history of black people in the americas.

• Slavery in the United States
• Free Black communities and abolitionism
• The Civil War era
• Reconstruction and after
• The age of Booker T. Washington
• The impact of World War I and African American migration to the North
• The Garvey movement and the Harlem Renaissance
• African American life during the Great Depression and the New Deal
• World War II
• The civil rights movement
• Urban upheaval
• A new direction
• Political progress
• Television and film

• What was Calhoun's view on slavery?
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• What was John Quincy Adams’s childhood like?
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African Americans

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• BlackPast - African American History Timeline
• Minority Rights Group - African Americans in the United States of America
• Constitutional Rights Foundation - An Overview of the African-American Experience
• Official Site of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• PBS - Finding Your Roots - Michael Strahan
• PBS - Sharecropping - Slavery By Another Name
• African Americans - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Black Americans, or African Americans - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Recent News

African Americans , one of the largest of the many ethnic groups in the United States . African Americans are mainly of African ancestry, but many have non-Black ancestors as well.

African Americans are largely the descendants of enslaved people who were brought from their African homelands by force to work in the New World. Their rights were severely limited, and they were long denied a rightful share in the economic, social, and political progress of the United States. Nevertheless, African Americans have made basic and lasting contributions to American history and culture .

At the turn of the 21st century, more than half the country’s more than 36,000,000 African Americans lived in the South; 10 Southern states had Black populations exceeding 1,000,000. African Americans were also concentrated in the largest cities, with more than 2,000,000 living in New York City and more than 1,000,000 in Chicago . Detroit , Philadelphia , and Houston each had a Black population between 500,000 and 1,000,000.

As Americans of African descent reached each new plateau in their struggle for equality, they reevaluated their identity. The slaveholder labels of black and negro (Spanish for “black”) were offensive, so they chose the euphemism colored when they were freed. Capitalized, Negro became acceptable during the migration to the North for factory jobs. Afro-American was adopted by civil rights activists to underline pride in their ancestral homeland, but Black —the symbol of power and revolution—proved more popular. All these terms are still reflected in the names of dozens of organizations. To reestablish “cultural integrity” in the late 1980s, Jesse Jackson proposed African American , which—unlike some “baseless” color label—proclaims kinship with a historical land base. In the 21st century the terms Black and African American both were widely used.

Africans assisted the Spanish and the Portuguese during their early exploration of the Americas. In the 16th century some Black explorers settled in the Mississippi valley and in the areas that became South Carolina and New Mexico . The most celebrated Black explorer of the Americas was Estéban , who traveled through the Southwest in the 1530s.

The uninterrupted history of Black people in the United States began in 1619, when 20 Africans were landed in the English colony of Virginia . These individuals were not enslaved people but indentured servants —persons bound to an employer for a limited number of years—as were many of the settlers of European descent (whites). By the 1660s large numbers of Africans were being brought to the English colonies. In 1790 Black people numbered almost 760,000 and made up nearly one-fifth of the population of the United States.

Attempts to hold Black servants beyond the normal term of indenture culminated in the legal establishment of Black chattel slavery in Virginia in 1661 and in all the English colonies by 1750. Black people were easily distinguished by their skin color (the result of evolutionary pressures favoring the presence in the skin of a dark pigment called melanin in populations in equatorial climates) from the rest of the populace, making them highly visible targets for enslavement. Moreover, the development of the belief that they were an “inferior” race with a “heathen” culture made it easier for whites to rationalize the enslavement of Black people. Enslaved Africans were put to work clearing and cultivating the farmlands of the New World.

Of an estimated 10,000,000 Africans brought to the Americas by the trade of enslaved peoples, about 430,000 came to the territory of what is now the United States. The overwhelming majority were taken from the area of western Africa stretching from present-day Senegal to Angola , where political and social organization as well as art, music, and dance were highly advanced. On or near the African coast had emerged the major kingdoms of Oyo , Ashanti , Benin , Dahomey , and the Congo. In the Sudanese interior had arisen the empires of Ghana , Mali , and Songhai ; the Hausa states ; and the states of Kanem-Bornu. Such African cities as Djenné and Timbuktu , both now in Mali , were at one time major commercial and educational centers.

With the increasing profitability of slavery and the trade of enslaved peoples, some Africans themselves sold captives to the European traders. The captured Africans were generally marched in chains to the coast and crowded into the holds of slave ships for the dreaded Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean , usually to the West Indies . Shock, disease, and suicide were responsible for the deaths of at least one-sixth during the crossing. In the West Indies the survivors were “seasoned”—taught the rudiments of English and drilled in the routines and discipline of plantation life.

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Black History

Civil Rights Movement Timeline

The civil rights movement was an organized effort by black Americans to end racial discrimination and gain equal rights under the law. It began in the late 1940s and ended in the late 1960s.

Rosa Parks (1913—2005) helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. Her actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Black History Month

February is dedicated as Black History Month, honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history.

Black History Milestones: Timeline

Black history in the United States is a rich and varied chronicle of slavery and liberty, oppression and progress, segregation and achievement.

Coretta Scott King

After her husband became pastor, Coretta Scott King joined the choir at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Hear two of her friends and members of the congregation remember Mrs. King’s legacy and her voice.

When Segregationists Bombed Martin Luther King Jr.’s House

On January 30, 1956, Martin Luther King Jr.’s house was bombed by segregationists in retaliation for the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Brown v. Board of Education

In 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously strikes down segregation in public schools, sparking the Civil Rights movement.

How the Montgomery Bus Boycott Accelerated the Civil Rights Movement

For 382 days, almost the entire African‑American population of Montgomery, Alabama, including leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, refused to ride on segregated buses, a turning point in the American civil rights movement.

The Black Explorer Who May Have Reached the North Pole First

In 1909 African American Matthew Henson trekked with explorer Robert Peary, reaching what they claimed was the North Pole. Who got there first?

How Madam C.J. Walker Became a Self‑Made Millionaire

Despite Jim Crow oppression, Walker founded her own haircare company that helped thousands of African American women gain financial independence.

8 Black Inventors Who Made Daily Life Easier

Black innovators changed the way we live through their many innovations, from the traffic light to the ironing board.

Harlem Renaissance: Photos From the African American Cultural Explosion

From jazz and blues to poetry and prose to dance and theater, the Harlem Renaissance of the early 20th century was electric with creative expression by African American artists.

This Day in History

Pioneering Black doctor performs successful open‑heart surgery

Frederick douglass delivers his “what to the slave is the fourth of july” speech, fdr signs order banning discrimination in the defense industry, martha jones becomes first black woman to receive a u.s. patent, martin luther king jr. writes “letter from a birmingham jail”, misty copeland becomes american ballet theater’s first black principal dancer.

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Celebrating Black History With The New York Times

Recent and archival articles, essays, photographs, videos, infographics, writing prompts, lesson plans and more.

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Below, a collection of Times articles, essays, photographs, videos, infographics and more that can help bring the wealth of Black history and culture into your classroom.

We begin with links to historic Times front pages, from the Dred Scott decision of 1857 through the civil rights movement and on to the election of Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to be elected vice president of the United States, and the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. Below that, you’ll find a selection of more recent pieces from across Times sections on Black history and contemporary culture, including a section featuring the “Black History, Continued” series and “The 1619 Project.” Finally, we list some of our own recent related Learning Network lesson plans and writing prompts in the hopes that they inspire further reading, writing and discussion.

Our list is long, yes, but we also know it’s not nearly complete. Are there important pieces about Black history that you teach with? Please let us know in the comments.

Here’s what you'll find below:

Historic headlines.

• Special New York Times Projects
• Selected Recent Reporting and Multimedia
• Learning Network Lessons, Writing Prompts and Films

Archival articles that document key moments in Black history, and give us a glimpse into the time period in which they unfolded.

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Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other

Many learn about ancestors, u.s. black history from family, table of contents.

• The importance of being Black for connections with other Black people
• The importance of Blackness for knowing family history and U.S. Black history
• Younger Black people are less likely to speak to relatives about ancestors
• Black Americans differ by party on measures of identity and connection
• The importance of race, ancestry and place to personal identity
• The importance of gender and sexuality to personal identity
• Black Americans and connectedness to other Black people
• Intra-racial connections locally, nationally and globally
• How Black Americans learn about their family history
• Most Black adults say their ancestors were enslaved, but some are not sure
• Most Black adults are at least somewhat informed about U.S. Black history
• For many Black adults, where they live shapes how they think about themselves
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the rich diversity of Black people in the United States and their views of Black identity. This in-depth, robust survey explores differences among Black Americans in views of identity such as between U.S.-born Black people and Black immigrants; Black people living in different regions of the country; and between Black people of different ethnicities, political party affiliations, ages and income levels. The analysis is the latest in the Center’s series of in-depth surveys of public opinion among Black Americans (read the first, “ Faith Among Black Americans ”).

The online survey of 3,912 Black U.S. adults was conducted Oct. 4-17, 2021. The survey includes 1,025 Black adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Respondents on both panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

Recruiting panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. Black adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). Here are the questions used for the survey of Black adults , along with its responses and methodology .

The terms “Black Americans” , “Black people” and “Black adults” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Black, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

Throughout this report, “Black, non-Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as single-race Black and say they have no Hispanic background. “Black Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as Black and say they have Hispanic background. We use the terms “Black Hispanic” and “Hispanic Black” interchangeably. “Multiracial” respondents are those who indicate two or more racial backgrounds (one of which is Black) and say they are not Hispanic.

Respondents were asked a question about how important being Black was to how they think about themselves. In this report, we use the terms “being Black” and “Blackness” interchangeably when referencing responses to this question.

In this report, “immigrant” refers to people who were not U.S. citizens at birth – in other words, those born outside the U.S., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories to parents who were not U.S. citizens. We use the terms “immigrant” and “foreign-born” interchangeably.

Throughout this report, “Democrat and Democratic leaners” refers to respondents who say in they identify politically with the Democratic Party or are independent but lean toward the Democratic Party. “ Republican and Republican leaners” refers to respondents who identify politically with the Republican Party or are independent but lean toward the Republican Party.

To create the upper-, middle- and lower-income tiers, respondents’ 2020 family incomes were adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and household size. Respondents were then placed into income tiers: “Middle income” is defined as two-thirds to double the median annual income for the entire survey sample. “Lower income” falls below that range, and “upper income” lies above it. For more information about how the income tiers were created, read the methodology .

No matter where they are from, who they are, their economic circumstances or educational backgrounds, significant majorities of Black Americans say being Black is extremely or very important to how they think about themselves, with about three-quarters (76%) overall saying so.   

A significant share of Black Americans also say that when something happens to Black people in their local communities, across the nation or around the globe, it affects what happens in their own lives, highlighting a sense of connectedness. Black Americans say this even as they have diverse experiences and come from an array of backgrounds.

Even so, Black adults who say being Black is important to their sense of self are more likely than other Black adults to feel connected to other groups of Black people. They are also more likely to feel that what happens to Black people inside and outside the United States affects what happens in their own lives. These findings emerge from an extensive new survey of Black U.S. adults conducted by Pew Research Center.

A majority of non-Hispanic Black Americans (78%) say being Black is very or extremely important to how they think about themselves. This racial group is the largest among Black adults , accounting for 87% of the adult population, according to 2019 Census Bureau estimates. But among other Black Americans, roughly six-in-ten multiracial (57%) and Hispanic (58%) Black adults say this.

Black Americans also differ in key ways in their views about the importance of being Black to personal identity. While majorities of all age groups of Black people say being Black shapes how they think about themselves, younger Black Americans are less likely to say this – Black adults ages 50 and older are more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 to say that being Black is very or extremely important to how they think of themselves. Specifically, 76% of Black adults ages 30 to 49, 80% of those 50 to 64 and 83% of those 65 and older hold this view, while only 63% of those under 30 do.

Black adults who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party are more likely than those who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party to say being Black is important to how they see themselves – 86% vs. 58%. And Black women (80%) are more likely than Black men (72%) to say being Black is important to how they see themselves.

Still, some subgroups of Black Americans are about as likely as others to say that being Black is very or extremely important to how they think about themselves. For example, U.S.-born and immigrant Black adults are about as likely to say being Black is important to how they see their identity. However, not all Black Americans feel the same about the importance of being Black to their identity – 14% say it is only somewhat important to how they see themselves while 9% say it has little or no impact on their personal identity, reflecting the diversity of views about identity among Black Americans.

Beyond the personal importance of Blackness – that is, the importance of being Black to personal identity – many Black Americans feel connected to each other. About five-in-ten (52%) say everything or most things that happen to Black people in the United States affect what happens in their own lives, with another 30% saying some things that happen nationally to Black people have a personal impact. And 43% say all or most things that happen to Black people in their local community affect what happens in their own lives, while another 35% say only some things in their lives are affected by these events. About four-in-ten Black adults in the U.S. (41%) say they feel their fates are strongly linked to Black people around the world, with 36% indicating that some things that happen to Black people around the world affect what happens in their own lives.

The survey also asked respondents how much they have in common with different groups of Black Americans. Some 17% of Black adults say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are immigrants. But this sense of commonality differs sharply by nativity: 14% of U.S.-born Black adults say they have everything or most things in common with Black immigrants, while 43% of Black immigrants say the same. Conversely, only about one-in-four Black immigrants (26%) say they have everything or most things in common with U.S.-born Black people, a share that rises to 56% among U.S.-born Black people themselves.

About one-third of Black Americans (34%) say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are poor, though smaller shares say the same about Black people who are wealthy (12%). Relatively few Black Americans (14%) say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ). However, a larger share of Black Americans (25%) say they have at least some things in common with Black people who identify as LGBTQ. All these findings highlight the diversity of the U.S. Black population and how much Black people feel connected to each other.

These are among the key findings from a recent Pew Research Center survey of 3,912 Black Americans conducted online Oct. 4-17, 2021. This report is the latest in a series of Pew Research Center studies focused on describing the rich diversity of Black people in the United States.

The nation’s Black population stood at 47 million in 2020 , making up 14% of the U.S. population – up from 13% in 2000. While the vast majority of Black Americans say their racial background is Black alone (88% in 2020), growing numbers are also multiracial or Hispanic. Most were born in the U.S. and trace their roots back several generations in the country, but a growing share are immigrants (12%) or the U.S.-born children of immigrant parents (9%). Geographically, while 56% of Black Americans live in the nation’s South , the national Black population has also dispersed widely across the country.

It is this diversity – among U.S.-born Black people and Black immigrants; between Black people who live in different regions; and across different ethnicities, party affiliations, ages and income levels – that this report explores. The survey also provides a robust opportunity to examine the importance of race to Black Americans’ sense of self and their connections to other Black people.

The importance of being Black to personal identity is a significant factor in how connected Black Americans feel toward each other. Those who say that being Black is a very or extremely important part of their personal identity are more likely than those for whom Blackness is relatively less important to express a sense of common fate with Black people in their local communities (50% vs. 17%), in the United States overall (62% vs. 21%), and even around the world (48% vs. 18%).

They are also more likely to say that they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are poor (37% vs. 23%) and Black immigrants (19% vs. 9%). Even so, fewer than half of Black Americans, no matter how important Blackness is to their personal identity, say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are poor, immigrants or LGBTQ.

The new survey also explores Black Americans’ knowledge about their family histories and the history of Black people in the United States, with the importance of Blackness linked to greater knowledge. 

Nearly six-in-ten Black adults (57%) say their ancestors were enslaved either in the U.S. or another country, with nearly all who say so (52% of the Black adults surveyed) saying it was in the U.S., either in whole or in part. Black adults who say that being Black is a very or extremely important part of how they see themselves (61%) are more likely than those for whom being Black is less important (45%) to say that their ancestors were enslaved. In fact, Black adults for whom Blackness is very or extremely important (31%) are less likely than their counterparts (42%) to say that they are not sure if their ancestors were enslaved at all.

When it comes to learning more about their family histories, Black adults for whom Blackness is very or extremely important (81%) are more likely than those for whom Blackness is less important (59%) to have spoken to their relatives. They are about as likely to have researched their family’s history online (36% and 30%, respectively) and to have used a mail-in DNA service such as AncestryDNA or 23andMe (15% and 16%) to learn more about their ancestry.

The importance of Blackness also figures prominently into how informed Black Americans feel about U.S. Black history. Black adults who say Blackness is a significant part of their personal identity are more likely than those for whom Blackness is less important to say that they feel very or extremely informed about U.S. Black history (57% vs. 29%). Overall, about half of Black Americans say they feel very or extremely informed about the history of Black people in the United States.

Among Black adults who feel at least a little informed about U.S. Black history, the sources of their knowledge also differ by the importance of Blackness to personal identity. Nearly half of Black adults for whom Blackness is very or extremely important (48%) say they learned about Black history from their families and friends, making them more likely to say so than Black adults for whom Blackness is less important (30%). Similarly, those who say being Black is important to their identity are more likely than those who did not say this to have learned about Black history from nearly every source they were asked about, be it media (33% vs. 22%), the internet (30% vs. 18%) or college, if they attended (26% vs. 14%). The only source for which both groups were about equally likely to say they learned about Black history was their K-12 schools (24% and 21%, respectively).

Overall, among Black Americans who feel at least a little informed about U.S. Black history, 43% say they learned about it from their relatives and friends, 30% say they learned about it from the media, 27% from the internet, and 24% from college (if they attended) and 23% from K-12 school.

Black adults under 30 years old differ significantly from older Black adults in their views on the importance of Blackness to their personal identity. However, Black adults also differ by age in how they pursue knowledge of family history, how informed they feel about U.S. Black history, and their sense of connectedness to other Black people.

Black adults under 30 (50%) are less likely than those 65 and older (64%) to say their ancestors were enslaved. In fact, 40% of Black adults under 30 say that they are not sure whether their ancestors were enslaved. Black adults in the youngest age group (59%) are less likely than the oldest (87%) to have spoken to their relatives about family history or to have used a mail-in DNA service to learn about their ancestors (11% vs. 21%). They are only slightly less likely to have conducted research on their families online (26% vs. 39%).

Black adults under 30 have the lowest share who say they feel very or extremely informed about the history of Black people in the United States (40%), compared with 60% of Black adults 65 and older and about half each of Black adults 50 to 64 (53%) and 30 to 49 (51%). In fact, Black adults under 30 are more likely than those 50 and older to say they feel a little or not at all informed about Black history. While Black adults are generally most likely to cite family and friends as their source for learning about Black history, the share under 30 (38%) who also cite the internet as a source of information is higher than the shares ages 50 to 64 (22%) and 65 and older (14%) who say this.

These age differences persist in the sense of connectedness that Black Americans have with other Black people. Black adults under 30 are less likely than those 65 and older to say that everything or most things that happen to Black people in the United States will affect their own lives. This youngest group is also less likely than the oldest to have this sense of common fate with Black people in their local community. One exception to this pattern occurs when Black adults were asked how much they had in common with Black people who identify as LGBTQ. Black adults under 30 (21%) were considerably more likely than those 65 and older (10%) to say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who identify as LGBTQ.

Black Democrats and Republicans differ on how important Blackness is to their personal identities. However, there are also partisan gaps when it comes to their connectedness to other Black people. 1

Black Democrats and those who lean to the Democratic Party are more likely than Black Republicans and Republican leaners to say that everything or most things that happen to Black people in the United States (57% vs. 39%) and their local communities (46% vs. 30%) affect what happens in their own lives. However, Black Republicans (24%) are more likely than Black Democrats (14%) to say that they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are LGBTQ. They are also more likely than Black Democrats to say they have everything or most things in common with Black people who are wealthy (25% vs. 11%).

When it comes to knowledge of family and racial histories, Black Democrats and Republicans do not differ. Democrats (59%) are just as likely as Republicans (54%) to know that their ancestors were enslaved. Nearly 80% of Black adults from both partisan coalitions say they have spoken to their relatives about their family history. Similar shares have also researched their family histories online and used mail-in DNA services.

Black Democrats are also not significantly more likely than Black Republicans to say they feel very or extremely informed about U.S. Black history (53% vs. 45%). And among those who feel at least a little informed about U.S. Black history, Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely to say they learned it from family and friends (45% vs. 38%).

Place is a key part of Black Americans’ personal identities

The majority of Black adults who live in the United States were born there, but an increasing portion of the population is comprised of immigrants. Of those immigrants, nearly 90% were born in the Caribbean or Africa . Regardless of their region of birth, 58% of Black adults say the country they were born in is very or extremely important to how they think about themselves. A smaller share say the same about the places where they grew up (46%).

Black adults also feel strongly about their current communities. About half of Black adults (52%) say that where they currently live is very or extremely important to how they think about themselves. And when it comes to the quality of their neighborhoods, 76% of Black adults rate them as at least good places to live, including 41% who say the quality of their community is very good or excellent.

Still, Black adults say there are concerning issues in the communities they live in. When asked in an open-ended question to list the issue that was most important in their neighborhoods, nearly one-in-five Black adults listed issues related to violence or crime (17%). Smaller shares listed other points of concern such as economic issues like poverty and homelessness (11%), housing (7%), COVID-19 and public health (6%), or infrastructure issues such as the availability of public transportation and the conditions of roads (5%).

While nearly one-in-five Black Americans (17%) say that individual people like themselves should be responsible for solving these problems, they are most likely to say that local community leaders should address these issues (48%). Smaller shares say the U.S. Congress (12%), the U.S. president (8%) or civil rights organizations (2%) bear responsibility.

• According to the survey, 80% of Black adults say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, 10% say the same of the Republican Party and 10% did not answer the question or indicated that they did not affiliate with either party. Among Black registered voters, the survey finds 85% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, 10% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party and 5% did not answer the question or indicated that they did not affiliate with either party. ↩

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A photographers journey capturing Black Rodeo culture from behind the lens

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As someone who’s spent the better part of a decade living and photographing in Los Angeles, few things felt more exciting than capturing my first rodeo here and the Black riders who personified athleticism, passion and courage. As part of my journey over the past several years to find Black faces and places to document in ways only my ancestors could have dreamt of — under the project name Black Magic — I went in search for Black horseback riders and rodeo participants of all ages chasing their desire to ride, jump, lasso and embody the spirit of the old West while making it new again.

Starting in January 2024, this journey has led me to the small-but-mighty city of Tulsa, Okla. Known by most as the site of the 1921 Race Massacre and historically Black Greenwood District, Tulsa and the greater state of Oklahoma is home to some of the richest pockets of rodeo and Western culture in the country, just ask the creators of the 2023 film “Riding Legacy (An Oklahoma Black Cowboy Story)” directed and produced by Kian Taylor, Jay Ridley, Nicole Jocleen and Brittany Taylor. Unlike Tulsa, L.A. is typically one of the last places people might assume any rodeo culture exists, let alone a Black rodeo. Little did I know upon entering the Industry Hills Expo Center in West Covina recently to witness the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo for the first time last year, I had stumbled onto an event where Black communities across the country congregate yearly for a day of fun, food, riding and fellowship.

A photographer’s role doesn’t solely depend on our ability to see things as they are. Our job offers the opportunity to, as Solange iconically put it, see things we’ve also imagined to add an air of whimsy or fantasy to the moments we’ve intentionally frozen in time. Upon entry to the parking lot of the 40th Annual Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo you are immediately tasked with tapping into all of your senses with an acuity we only enlist during a heightened sense of excitement. You smell the rodeo well before you approach entry gates. The assortment of fried, smothered, pickled or barbecued options guide your steps into the gentlest of food comas. Sounds of Beyoncé and Earth, Wind & Fire reach your eardrums and awaken the alto in all of us to join the choir of thousands around you. Depending on how close you end up sitting, you may even taste some of the dirt thrown from the ring as champion cowgirl Kandra Demery whirls about the strategically placed obstacles during her barrel races. Without a doubt, you’ll feel your heart racing watching the steer wrestlers hurl themselves from atop their horses to wrangle bovine companions in time to secure their victory.

With a camera in hand, I challenged myself to capture the synchronized electric slides, dozens upon dozens of Black folk on horseback in the arena for the Grand Entry trailed by the largest Pan-African flag you’ve ever seen carried by rising star Paris Wilburd. I aimed to document the fast twitch movements of each bull trying to dismount daredevils like my rodeo twin Au’Vion Horton, contributing to the treasure trove of Black culture and keeping my finger on the shutter button to get the best shot.

As the popularity of Black rodeo culture has grown in the last year, it has opened doors for countless Black folk to deepen their relationship with themselves through seeing these historic traditions and families that have upheld them for generations. One of the first faces I saw upon entry to the arena in L.A. is the rodeo’s Merchandise Manager Kristi Demery, a rodeo mom for almost 30 years from Okmulgee, Okla. now living in the Beggs, Okla. We spoke of the reverence this community has for their lifestyle and the legacy left by Bill Pickett Rodeo’s founder Lu Vason in 1984 that caused millions of Black folk to truly understand our place in Western culture.

Fast forward one year, Demery has become somewhat of a rodeo mother to me as we’ve seen each other at numerous rodeos around Oklahoma. Each rodeo is akin to a family reunion, a side glance across the bleachers can turn into an hour long conversation recalling how each other’s mothers are doing with smiles cheek to cheek and the promise of leaving with a plate of your favorite catfish.

After experiencing the captivating events a year prior, I arranged for my own reunion of sorts with around 35 friends and new faces within the Black creative community to gather and bear witness to this momentous anniversary. I think of Kilyn Hayes, Devyn Hayes and Maya Johnson for example. These young Black women from the Inland Empire and their families congregate in the VIP section of the arena to break bread, share laughter and, of course, take photos among the sea of Black rodeo enthusiasts each year. I’ve had the pleasure of photographing and spending time with them and their families for the second year in a row. Even if you don’t arrive at the show with your family, you’re almost guaranteed to feel close to kin with someone by the time you leave. The magnetic energy and gleaming smile of rodeo MC Tiffany Guess will certainly make sure of it.

The Bill Pickett Rodeo is a celebration of the culture that extends far beyond the bright lights and line dances. For 40 years, generations of people have come from far corners of America to honor the contributions made by Black people in Western culture. The dedicated staff that puts on the traveling rodeo tour reminds us as each rodeo concludes why it truly is “The Greatest Show on Dirt.”

Here’s a few more images from the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo in Los Angeles:

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