Traces black history from its origins in western Africa, through the transatlantic journey and slavery, the Reconstruction period, the Jim Crow era, and the civil rights movement, to life in the 1990s. This compelling compilation of black contributions to world history confirms that the contributions of Africans and African-Americans far exceed the footnotes and peripheries of modern examinations of history.

Nina Mjagkij is Director of African American Studies at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. Portraits of African American Life since 1865 is an intimate study of 14 African Americans since the end of the Civil War. Written by established and rising scholars, these diverse biographies offer a rich portrayal of the African American experience over the last 150 years. Unlike many other similar books, this volume explores the lives of ordinary individuals who pursued a variety of endeavors from politics, labor reform, religion, medicine, sports, business, and, importantly, civil rights.

This encyclopedia explores the struggle's successes and setbacks, from emancipation to the beginning of the 21st century. An impressive range of subjects covers everything from W.E.B. DuBois to early legislative acts, constitutional amendments of the mid-1800s, "Black Is Beautiful," the tumultuous events of the 1960s, Al Sharpton, the Million Man March, and Adam Clayton Powell. Primary documents--personal vignettes, court cases, newspaper articles, and speeches--provide firsthand accounts and supplement the A-Z entries. An extensive timeline highlights key events.

Heartening, firsthand account by the man widely regarded as the person who provided much of the material for the self-sacrificing, revered character in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henson perceptively recalls his childhood and youth, forced separation from his wife and children, escape to Canada, role as "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, and meeting with Queen Victoria in England. Additional comments on fugitive slaves enlisting in the Union Army and Henson's brief return after the Civil War to his old home in Maryland. Invaluable resource for students and teachers of Southern and African-American history, and anyone devoted to the struggle for racial equality.

Tilove, who covers race for Newhouse News Service, spent two years traveling across the U.S. locating and chronicling life along the streets, drives, boulevards, and avenues named for Martin Luther King Jr. Tilove and photographer Falco discovered nearly 500 streets named for the slain civil rights leader.

This book focuses on more than 450 events, people, organizations, and policies that have affected the political history of African Americans from the Revolutionary War to the present day. The major theme is one of relationships between African Americans and whites and how gaining, maintaining, and using power determines political effectiveness. Essays cover the principles guiding the structure of the U.S. Constitution and their impact on African Americans; on African-American political thought, leadership, ideologies, organizations, and movements; and on important political personalities and events.

Thirty years ago there were nine African Americans in the US House of Representatives. Today there are four times that number. Fenno follows the career of four black representatives - Louis Stokes, Barbara Jordan, Chaka Fattah and Stephanie Tubbs Jones - from their home districts to the halls of the Capitol. Fenno's detailed portraits and incisive analysis should be important for anyone interested in the workings of Congress or in black politics.

An enthralling narrative about a lost era in both baseball and American History, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators reveals the true story of the greatest baseball dynasty most people have never heard of--the Homestead Grays--and how the fight to integrate our national pastime began with this team.

This work analyzes the music of Black American composers simultaneously through the lenses of American sociology, Western concepts of art, taste, and vernacular forms including spirituals, blues, jazz, and contemporary popular music. It is an exploration of the work of creative Black American composers within the Western framework of musical composition.

From Hattie McDaniel to Halle Berry, African American nominees and recipients of the Oscar in either the actor, actress, or director categories are the focus of this encyclopedia. Entries, organized chronologically and by name, provide valuable information about how the role or film was viewed during its time and places it in historical context by drawing connections to other awards or events in film history. Appendices provide lists of overlooked performances, non acting/directing nominees and winners, and performers of nominated songs.

This informative collection of interviews with more than 35 African-American filmmakers surveys the current field of mass market director/producers and documentarians working in both Hollywood and the independent arena. . In all, this is a worthy addition to the reference shelf of anyone with an interest in film or African-American culture.

In her memoir, Dr. Height, now ninety-one, reflects on a life of service and leadership. We witness her childhood encounters with racism and the thrill of New York college life during the Harlem Renaissance. We read of how she sits onstage as Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. We meet people she knew intimately throughout the decades: W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary McLeod Bethune, Adam Clayton Powell Sr., Langston Hughes, and many others. And we read how she leads the National Council of Negro Women for forty-one years, her diplomatic counsel sought by U.S. Presidents from Eisenhower to Clinton.

This book includes narratives of learning key life lessons from 30 elders and visionaries, as well as one-page profiles of regional leaders. To be chosen, subjects had to be national leaders at least seventy years of age. The prestigious list includes Maya Angelou, John Hope Franklin, Dorothy Height, Ray Charles, Gordon Parks, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis among others. The book is edited by Dr. Camille O. Cosby and Renee Poussaint, who are founders of the National Visionary Leadership Project, whose mission is "To ensure that the wisdom of our country's extraordinary African American elders is preserved by and passed on to young people who will lead us tomorrow."

With this collection of fiction and memoirs by 23 black women, Danquah draws attention to a new era of writers following up the legacy established by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor, and Jamaica Kincaid. Danquah's collection focuses on works published after 1990, when black women were facing an explosion of issues new to their generation and moving beyond the constraints of the black community physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. Meri Nana-Ama Danquah lives in Washington, DC.

Pamela Newkirk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Associate Professor of Journalism in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at New York University. A Delightful paean to African American love, this treasury of fifty letters written by well known figures and ordinary folk alike resonates with the joy and tenderness of romance, and offers glimpses into the social, literary, and political lives of black Americans throughout the last two centuries. A LOVE NO LESS presents the letters of African American lovers of all walks of life--from slave letters to the celebrated turn-of-the-twentieth-century poet Paul Laurence Dunbar to soldiers fighting World War II, to notable entertainers, businessmen, and civic leaders.

Onwuchekwa Jemie teaches African American and African Literature at Howard University. Collected primarily in metropolitan New York and Philadelphia during the classic era of black "street poetry" (i.e., during the late 1960s and early 1970s) these raps, signifyings, toasts, boasts, jokes and children's rhymes will delight general readers as well as scholars. Ranging from the simple rhymes that accompany children's games to verbally inventive insults and the epic exploits of traditional characters like Shine and Stagger Lee, these texts sound the deep rivers of culture, echoing two continents.