African American History
slave ship to the death of Frederick Douglass - and shows how all aspects of American culture, history, and national identity have been profoundly influenced by the experience of African Americans. The Encyclopedia covers an extraordinary range of subjects. Major topics such as "Abolitionism," "Black Nationalism," the "Civil War," the "Dred Scott case," "Reconstruction," "Slave Rebellions and Insurrections," the "Underground Railroad," and "Voting Rights" are given the in-depth treatment one
would expect. But the encyclopedia also contains hundreds of fascinating entries on less obvious subjects, such as the "African Grove Theatre," "Black Seafarers," "Buffalo Soldiers," the "Catholic Church and African Americans," "Cemeteries and Burials," "Gender," "Midwifery," "New York African Free
Schools," "Oratory and Verbal Arts," "Religion and Slavery," the "Secret Six," and much more. In addition, the Encyclopedia offers brief biographies of important African Americans - as well as white Americans who have played a significant role in African American history - from Crispus Attucks, John
Brown, and Henry Ward Beecher to Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Sarah Grimké, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Phillis Wheatley, and many others. All of the Encyclopedia's alphabetically arranged entries are accessibly written and free of jargon and technical terms. To facilitate ease of use, many composite entries gather similar topics under one headword. The entry for Slave Narratives, for example, includes three subentries: The Slave
Narrative in America from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Interpreting Slave Narratives, and African and British Slave Narratives. A headnote detailing the various subentries introduces each composite entry. Selective bibliographies and cross-references appear at the end of each article to
direct readers to related articles within the Encyclopedia and to primary sources and scholarly works beyond it. A topical outline, chronology of major events, nearly 300 black and white illustrations, and comprehensive index further enhance the work's usefulness.
FOUR STARRED REVIEWS
"A convincing, handsomely produced argument..."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Bolden makes excellent use of primary sources; the pages are filled with archival photos, engravings, letters, posters, maps, newspaper articles, and other period documents. Detailed captions and a glossary interpret them for today's readers."
--School Library Journal, starred review "The language soars, powerfully communicating not just the facts about the Emancipation Proclamation but its meaning for those who cared most passionately."
--Booklist, starred review "Bolden tackles these questions in a richly illustrated overview of the lead-up to the Proclamation, organizing and reiterating information already familiar to many middle-schoolers, while introducing material that will probably be eye-opening to students who have taken their textbook's version of history at face value."
--The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review Award
School Library Journal Best Book of 2013
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbons List 2013
Notable Children's Books from ALSC 2014
2014 Carter G.Woodson Middle Level Book Award
The Emancipation Proclamation is the most important document of arguably the greatest president in U.S. history. Now, Edna Greene Medford, Frank J. Williams, and Harold Holzer -- eminent experts in their fields -- remember, analyze, and interpret the Emancipation Proclamation in three distinct respects: the influence of and impact upon African Americans; the legal, political, and military exigencies; and the role pictorial images played in establishing the document in public memory. The result is a carefully balanced yet provocative study that views the proclamation and its author from the perspective of fellow Republicans, antiwar Democrats, the press, the military, the enslaved, free blacks, and the antislavery white establishment, as well as the artists, publishers, sculptors, and their patrons who sought to enshrine Abraham Lincoln and his decree of freedom in iconography.Medford places African Americans, the people most affected by Lincoln's edict, at the center of the drama rather than at the periphery, as previous studies have done. She argues that blacks interpreted the proclamation much more broadly than Lincoln intended it, and during the postwar years and into the twentieth century they became disillusioned by the broken promise of equality and the realities of discrimination, violence, and economic dependence. Williams points out the obstacles Lincoln overcame in finding a way to confiscate property -- enslaved humans -- without violating the Constitution. He suggests that the president solidified his reputation as a legal and political genius by issuing the proclamation as Commander-in-Chief, thus taking the property under the pretext of military necessity. Holzer explores how it was only after Lincoln's assassination that the Emancipation Proclamation became an acceptable subject for pictorial celebration. Even then, it was the image of the martyr-president as the great emancipator that resonated in public memory, while any reference to those African Americans most affected by the proclamation was stripped away.This multilayered treatment reveals that the proclamation remains a singularly brave and bold act -- brilliantly calculated to maintain the viability of the Union during wartime, deeply dependent on the enlightened voices of Lincoln's contemporaries, and owing a major debt in history to the image-makers who quickly and indelibly preserved it.
The first book of long fiction by an African to be published in English, this novel tells the story of a young woman of the Vai people in Liberia.
In this succinct study, Edna Greene Medford examines the ideas and events that shaped President Lincoln's responses to slavery, following the arc of his ideological development from the beginning of the Civil War, when he aimed to pursue a course of noninterference, to his championing of slavery's destruction before the conflict ended. Throughout, Medford juxtaposes the president's motivations for advocating freedom with the aspirations of African Americans themselves, restoring African Americans to the center of the story about the struggle for their own liberation.
Lincoln and African Americans, Medford argues, approached emancipation differently, with the president moving slowly and cautiously in order to save the Union while the enslaved and their supporters pressed more urgently for an end to slavery. Despite the differences, an undeclared partnership existed between the president and slaves that led to both preservation of the Union and freedom for those in bondage. Medford chronicles Lincoln's transition from advocating gradual abolition to campaigning for immediate emancipation for the majority of the enslaved, a change effected by the military and by the efforts of African Americans. The author argues that many players--including the abolitionists and Radical Republicans, War Democrats, and black men and women--participated in the drama through agitation, military support of the Union, and destruction of the institution from within. Medford also addresses differences in the interpretation of freedom: Lincoln and most Americans defined it as the destruction of slavery, but African Americans understood the term to involve equality and full inclusion into American society. An epilogue considers Lincoln's death, African American efforts to honor him, and the president's legacy at home and abroad.
Both enslaved and free black people, Medford demonstrates, were fervent participants in the emancipation effort, showing an eagerness to get on with the business of freedom long before the president or the North did. By including African American voices in the emancipation narrative, this insightful volume offers a fresh and welcome perspective on Lincoln's America.
In Lincoln Lessons, seventeen of today's most respected academics, historians, lawyers, and politicians provide candid reflections on the importance of Abraham Lincoln in their intellectual lives. Their essays, gathered by editors Frank J. Williams and William D. Pederson, shed new light on this political icon's remarkable ability to lead and inspire two hundred years after his birth.
Collected here are glimpses into Lincoln's unique ability to transform enemies into steadfast allies, his deeply ingrained sense of morality and intuitive understanding of humanity, his civil deification as the first assassinated American president, and his controversial suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. The contributors also discuss Lincoln's influence on today's emerging democracies, his lasting impact on African American history, and his often-overlooked international legend--his power to instigate change beyond the boundaries of his native nation. While some contributors provide a scholarly look at Lincoln and some take a more personal approach, all explore his formative influence in their lives. What emerges is the true history of his legacy in the form of first-person testaments from those whom he has touched deeply.
Lincoln Lessons brings together some of the best voices of our time in a unique combination of memoir and history. This singular volume of original essays is a tribute to the enduring inspirational powers of an extraordinary man whose courage and leadership continue to change lives today.
Contributors
Jean H. Baker
Mario M. Cuomo
Joan L. Flinspach
Sara Vaughn Gabbard
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Harold Holzer
Harry V. Jaffa
John F. Marszalek
James M. McPherson
Edna Greene Medford
Sandra Day O'Connor
Mackubin Thomas Owens
William D. Pederson
Edward Steers Jr.
Craig L. Symonds
Thomas Reed Turner
Frank J. Williams
In the midst of the Great Depression, the Federal Writer's Project assigned field workers to interview ex-slaves. More than 2,000 former slaves contributed their personal accounts and opinions, and their oral histories were deposited in the Library of Congress.
The former slaves describe the clothes they wore, the food they ate, the houses they lived in, the type of work they did, and the treatment they received. They tell their impressions of Yankee soldiers, the Klan, their masters, and their new-found freedom.
Because the interviews were conducted during the Great Depression, some of the narratives provide insights that are at times surprising. These interviews have preserved a valuable source of information about the institution of slavery in the United States and the effect it had on the people involved.
"One day Grandpappy sassed Miss Polly White, and she told him that if he didn't behave hisself that she would put him in her pocket. Grandpappy was a big man, and I ask him how Miss Polly could do that. He said she meant that she would sell him, then put the money in her pocket. He never did sass Miss Polly no more."--Sarah Debro
These eloquent words come from former slaves themselves--an important but long-neglected source of information about the institution of slavery in the United States. Who could better describe what slavery was like than the people who experienced it? And describe it they did, in thousands of remarkable interviews sponsored by the Federal Writers Project during the 1930's
Over 2,000 slave narratives that are now housed in the Library of Congress. More than 170 interviews were conducted in North Carolina. Belinda Hurmence pored over each of the North Carolina narratives, compiling and editing 21 of the first-person accounts for this collection.
These narratives, though artless in many ways, speak compellingly of the joys and sorrows, the hopes and dreams, of the countless people who endured human bondage in the land of the free.
Based on the diary of the author's great--grandmother, this is a poignant and compelling look at slavery through the eyes of a young girl. Once read, it is not soon forgotten.
Featuring:
I will tell it in Sheldon's own words as nearly as I can. He was wounded in a fierce battle and left for dead in a pasture somewhere in Georgia when Pinkus found him. Pinkus' skin was the color of polished mahogany, and he was flying Union colors like the wounded boy, and he picked him up out of the field and brought him to where the black soldier's mother, Moe Moe Bay, lived. She had soft, gentle hands and cared for him and her Pink. But the two boys were putting her in danger, two Union soldiers in Confederate territory! They had to get back to their outfits. Scared and uncertain, the boys were faced with a hard decision, and then marauding Confederate troops rode in. In this Civil War story passed from great-grandfather to grandmother, to son, and finally to the author-artist herself, Patricia Polacco once again celebrates the shared humanity of the peoples of this world.
reunion with her Momma, who lives on another plantation--and even of running
away to freedom. Then she overhears two slaves talking about the Underground
Railroad. In a flash of inspiration, Clara sees how she can use the cloth in
her scrap bag to make a map of the land--a freedom quilt--that no master will
ever suspect. "A particularly effective way to introduce the subject to younger
children, adding a trenchant immediacy to their understanding of a difficult
but important chapter in the country's past."--(starred) "Horn Book."
"This first-rate book is a triumph of the heart."--(starred) "Publishers
Weekly.
"
Through the prisms of history, literature, psychology, criminal justice, oral history, African American studies, political science, film studies, and anthropology, Terrible Swift Sword offers insights not only into John Brown's controversial character and motives, but also into the nature of a troubled society before, during, and after the Civil War. The discussions include reasons why Brown's contemporaries supported him, attempts to define Brown using different criteria, analyses of Brown's behavior, his depiction in literature, and examinations of the iconography surrounding him.
The interdisciplinary focus marshalled by editor Peggy A. Russo makes Terrible Swift Sword unique, and this, together with the popular mythology surrounding the legend of John Brown, will appeal to a broad audience of readers interested in this turbulent moment in American history.Paul Finkelman is Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tulsa College of Law. He is the author of many articles and books, including His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid and the Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference Peggy Russo is an assistant professor of English at the Mont Alto Campus of Pennsylvania State University. She has published in Shakespeare Bulletin, The Southern Literary Journal, Journal of American Culture, Shakespeare and the Classroom, and Civil War Book Review.
During the Great Depression, photographer Allen Eugene Cole posted a sign in front of his studio in Cleveland's Central neighborhood: somebody, somewhere, wants your photograph. An entrepreneurial businessman with a keen ability to market his images of Cleveland's black experience, Cole was deeply immersed in civic life. A founder and treasurer of the Progressive Business League, Cole was an officer of the Dunbar Life Insurance Co., a member of St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, and active in the Elks and Masons. For years he was the only black member of the Cleveland Society of Professional Photographers. Well into the 1960s his photographs appeared regularly in the Call & Post, Cleveland's African American weekly newspaper.
A migrant to Cleveland in 1917, Allen Cole developed an interest in photography while employed as a waiter at the Cleveland Athletic Club. By 1922 he had opened his first studio at home, enlarging it over the years. It was in this studio that he photographed Perry B. Jackson, Ohio's first African American judge.
The images of Jackson and the hundreds of other African Americans included in this volume were chosen from the thousands of photographs in the Allen Cole Collection at the Western Reserve Historical Society. They illustrate the diverse experiences among Cleveland's vibrant African American community. Social organizations, women's and men's clubs, civic and church groups, schoolchildren and teachers, businessmen, and politicians are all included in this charming and unique collection. In the accompanying text authors Samuel Black and Regennia Williams place Cole and his comprehensive visual catalog in the context of African American history and the Great Migration.
Through the Lens of Allen E. Cole mines Cole's exceptional midtwentieth-century photographic chronicle of African American life and will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in American history, as well as specialists in African studies, history, sociology, urban affairs, and the photographic arts.
A firm believer in the value of education as the best route to advancement, Washington disapproved of civil-rights agitation and in so doing earned the opposition of many black intellectuals. Yet, he is today regarded as a major figure in the struggle for equal rights, one who founded a number of organizations to further the cause and who worked tirelessly to educate and unite African-Americans.
The picture book inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film The Green Book
Ruth was so excited to take a trip in her family's new car! In the early 1950s, few African Americans could afford to buy cars, so this would be an adventure. But she soon found out that black travelers weren't treated very well in some towns. Many hotels and gas stations refused service to black people. Daddy was upset about something called Jim Crow laws . . .
Finally, a friendly attendant at a gas station showed Ruth's family The Green Book. It listed all of the places that would welcome black travelers. With this guidebook--and the kindness of strangers--Ruth could finally make a safe journey from Chicago to her grandma's house in Alabama.
Ruth's story is fiction, but The Green Book and its role in helping a generation of African American travelers avoid some of the indignities of Jim Crow are historical fact.
