Summary: Challenges one of America's most cherished assumptions, the belief that slavery in the U.S. ended with Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, by telling the harrowing story of how, in the South, a new system of involuntary servitude took its place with shocking force.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: PBS Distribution 2012
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in E-TV DVDs, Call number: DVD E-TV SLADu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
Summary: A definitive edition of the landmark book that forever changed our understanding of the Civil War's aftermath and the legacy of racism in America. Upon publication in 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois's now classic Black Reconstruction offered a revelatory new assessment of Reconstruction--and of American democracy itself. One of the towering African American thinkers and activists of the twentieth century,...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: The Library of America 2021
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 973.81 DU BBlackmon, Douglas A.
Summary: A sobering account of a little-known crime against African Americans, and the insidious legacy of racism that reverberates today. From the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II, under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests....
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Doubleday 2008
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 305.896 BLADu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Oxford University Press 2007
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 973.8 DUBJones, Jacqueline
Summary: "Before, during, and after the US Civil War, Boston's Black workers were barred from the skilled trades, factory work, and public-works projects. In Boston, as in cities across the North, white abolitionists focused virtually all their energies on the plight of enslaved Black Southerners, while refusing to address the challenges faced by their Black neighbors. The author presents inspiring and...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Basic Books 2023
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 974.4 JONFischer, David Hackett
Summary: "A brilliant synthesis of African and African-American history that shows how slavery differed in different regions of the country, and how the Africans and their descendants influenced the culture, commerce, and laws of the early United States"--
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Simon & Schuster 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 973.0496 FISMullenbach, Cheryl
Summary: An account of the lesser-known contributions of African-American women during World War II reveals how they helped lay the foundations for the Civil Rights Movement by challenging racial and gender barriers at home and abroad.
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Chicago Review Press 2013
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 940.53 MULOso, Maisha
Summary: "Before the Ships is a powerful and poetic celebration of the early roots of Black history."--
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Orchard Books 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Juvenile Easy, Call number: JE OSOButler-Ngugi, Anitra
Summary: "In 2019, the remains of the Clotilda were discovered in the Mobile River. The discovery of the last slave ship helped document the history of Africatown-a community built by Africans who had been illegally brought to Mobile, Alabama, on that ship in 1860 and enslaved. But for more than 160 years, the people of Africatown have been preserving their own history and culture-and fighting for a...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Capstone Press 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 306.362 BUTMwai, Melissa H.
Summary: "Learn all about the amazing African American culture of Harlem with this fun-filled nonfiction reader--carefully leveled to help children progress . . . 'Harlem Renaissance' will introduce kids to the exciting lives, music, art and ideas of the African American community of Harlem 100 years ago--and is a motivating introduction to using essential nonfiction reading skills, proving ideal for...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: DK Publishing 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Beginning Readers - Transitional Reader (Blue), Call number: JBR BLUE MWAHurston, Zora Neale
Summary: In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation's history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo's firsthand account of the raid that led to his...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 306.3 HURCopies Available at Kingsley
1 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 306.3 HURDelmont, Matthew F.
Summary: "The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont. Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in segregated units and performing unheralded but vital support jobs, only to be denied housing and...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 940.54 DELLong, Michael G.
Summary: "This powerful and triumphant picture book biography tells the story of Bayard Rustin, an openly gay civils rights leader, who, with the support of Dr. King and future congressman John Lewis, led 250,000 people to the doorstep of the U.S. government demanding change"--
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Little Bee Books 2023
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 921 RUSTabor, Nick
Summary: "In 1860, a ship called the Clotilda was smuggled through the Alabama Gulf Coast, carrying the last group of enslaved people ever brought to the U.S. from West Africa. Five years later, the shipmates were emancipated, but they had no way of getting back home. Instead they created their own community outside the city of Mobile, where they spoke Yoruba and appointed their own leaders, a story...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: St. Martin's Press 2023
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 305.896 TABDurkin, Hannah
Summary: "Joining the ranks of Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Zora Neale Hurston's rediscovered classic Barracoon, an immersive and revelatory history of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to land on US soil, told through the stories of its survivors-the last documented survivors of any slave ship-whose lives diverged and intersected in profound ways"--
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 306.3 DURBaker, Brea
Summary: Why is less than 1% of rural land in the U.S. owned by Black people? An acclaimed writer and activist explores the impact of land theft and violent displacement on racial wealth gaps, arguing that justice stems from the literal roots of the earth. To understand the contemporary racial wealth gap, we must first unpack the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: One World 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 333.33 BAKJefferson, Margo
Summary: "Stunning for her daring originality, the author of Negroland gives us what she calls "a temperamental autobiography," comprised of visceral, intimate fragments that fuse criticism and memoir. Margo Jefferson constructs a nervous system with pieces of different lengths and tone, conjoining arts writing (poem, song, performance) with life writing (history, psychology). The book's structure is...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Pantheon Books 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 921 JEFFERSON, MARGO JEFAlexander, Kwame
Summary: From the fireside tales in an African village, through the unspeakable passage across the Atlantic, to the backbreaking work in the fields of the South, this is a story of a people's struggle and strength, horror and hope. This is the story of American slavery, a story that needs to be told and understood by all of us. A testament to the resilience of the African American community, this book...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Little, Brown and Company 2023
Copies Available at Peninsula
1 available in Juvenile, Call number: JE ALECopies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Juvenile Easy, Call number: JE ALECopies Available at East Bay
1 available in Juvenile Easy, Call number: JE ALEHarriot, Michael
Summary: "From acclaimed columnist and political commentator Michael Harriot, a searingly smart and bitingly hilarious retelling of American history that corrects the record and showcases the perspectives and experiences of Black Americans. America's backstory is a whitewashed mythology implanted in our collective memory. It is the story of the pilgrims on the Mayflower building a new nation. It is...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: 2023
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 973.0496 HARPryor, Shawn
Summary: "On February 1, 1960, four young black men sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and staged a nonviolent protest against segregation. At that time, many restaurants in the South did not serve black people. Soon, thousands of students were staging sit-ins across the South, and within six months, the lunch counter at which they'd first protested was integrated....
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Capstone Press, a Capstone imprint 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
2 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 975.6 PRYDennis, David J.
Summary: "A dynamic family exchange that pivots between the voices of a father and son, The Movement Made Us is a unique work of oral history and memoir, chronicling the extraordinary story of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and its living legacy embodied in Black Lives Matter. David Dennis Sr, a core architect of the movement, speaks out for the first time, swapping recollections both harrowing...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Harper an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Non-fiction, Call number: 920 DENWeatherford, Carole Boston
Summary: "On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million activists and demonstrators from every corner of the United States convened for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was there that they raised their voices in unison to call for racial and economic justice for all Black Americans, to call out inequities, and ultimately to advance the Civil Rights Movement. Every movement has its unsung...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Henry Holt and Company 2022
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Juvenile Nonfiction, Call number: J 921 RUSJackson, Jenn M.
Summary: "Jenn M. Jackson has been known to bring deep historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women's freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost in the meantime? A love letter to those who...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Random House 2024
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Adult Fiction, Call number: 305.48 JACButler-Ngugi, Anitra
Summary: "It's May 1963, and twelve-year-old Nina Norris is answering a call from civil rights leaders in Birmingham, Alabama. Black Americans are demanding the right to vote, but adults who protest risk losing their jobs. So, children are protesting in their place. As Nina prepares for her day, she knows she will likely be arrested and put in jail, but it's a price she is willing to pay so that all...
Format: text
Publisher / Publication Date: Stone Arch Books, a Capstone imprint 2024