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Books
(Alphabetical by topic)
Alvin Ailey
DeFrance, Thomas R. Dancing Revelations; Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African
American Culture.
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Alvin Ailey was one of American’s premier dancers and the founder of the
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. This book traces the evolution of
Ailey's masterpiece Revelations and its importance for new generations of
dancers and for contemporary African American creative expression by
exposing and confronting racial stereotypes. Ira Aldridge
Marshall, Herbert and Stock, Mildred. Ira Aldridge, the Negro Tragedian.
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Aldridge realized as a young man that racism in the U.S. would hinder his
acting career and migrated to England, where he met the same racist
attitudes. Aldridge, who continued to feel racism's sting throughout his
career, used his talent and money to support the abolitionists. It was not
uncommon for him, at the close of an evening's performance, to play a guitar
and sing an anti-slavery song and throughout his career he continued to be a
spokesman for the cause. He persevered and went on to win many theater
awards including the critical acclaim of the British press that once
denigrated him.
Architects
_________. African American Architects; a Biographical Dictionary,
1865-1945. ed. Dreck S. Wilson.
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A gold mine for anyone interested in architecture or African American
architects, this work focuses on African American architects practicing in
the late nineteenth and early to mid-twentieth centuries. Biographical
entries include a building list for each architect. There are also are
entries for nine architectural programs and eight so-called Negro Buildings
designed for the most part by African American architects for one world's
fair and seven southern regional fairs.
James Beckwourth
Dolan, Sean. James P. Beckwourth. (Chelsea House,
1992)
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A legend among frontiersmen, Beckwourth spent much time among the Indians.
Examines the life and career of the nineteenth-century hunter, trapper, and
trader. Sterling A. Brown
Gabbin, Joanne. Sterling A. Brown; Building the Black Aesthetic Tradition.
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Brown was an innovative poet as well as a ground-breaking critic of writing
by and about blacks. He gave an insider's view of how social attitudes can
affect and often distort the way a group is portrayed. He rejected the
stereotypes and clichés that had come to represent black life and character
and brought into the Afro-American criticism the singular truth that the
treatment of an oppressed group in literature parallels its treatment in
life, and the greater the incidence of oppression, the greater the degree of
misrepresentation and exploitation in literature.
John Edward Bruce
Crowder, Ralph L. John Edward Bruce: Politician, Journalist, and
Self-Trained Historian of the African Diaspora.
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John Edward Bruce was born in slavery and became a self-taught historian,
journalist, and Republican officeholder. He initiated the movement to study
and popularize African American history and was founder of the Negro Society
for Historical Research. As a dark-skinned black man, Bruce condemned the
snobbery of the light-skinned mulatto elite that condescended to darker
African Americans and was a central figure in the "triangular trade" of
nationalist, anticolonial, Pan-Africanist ideas with people of color in the
Caribbean and Africa.
Ralph Bunche
Bunche, Ralph. Selected Speeches and Writings. Ed. Charles P. Henry.
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Bunche was a pioneer in every sense of the word. The first black American to
hold a doctorate in political science, Bunche established the political
science department at Howard University and co-founded the National Negro
Congress. He played a major part in the delegation that established the
United Nations and, when he retired as Under Secretary General, was the
highest- ranking black in that organization. In 1950, he was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize and thus became the first black Nobel laureate.
Ben Carson
Carson, Ben. Gifted Hands. (Zondervan, 1990)
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Carson, one of the most celebrated neurosurgeons in the world, he tells of
his inspiring odyssey from his childhood in inner-city Detroit to his
position as director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital at
age 33. Carson is a role model for anyone who attempts the seemingly
impossible as he takes you into the operating room where he has saved
countless lives.
Judge Robert Carter
Carter, Judge Robert. A Matter of Law: a Memoir of Struggle in the Cause of
Equal Rights.
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Carter recalls that when he was in high school the state Supreme Court ruled
that public school facilities had to be made available to all students but
when he reported this to his teachers, he was immediately threatened with
expulsion. As the first black graduate law student at Columbia, Carter met
with his professors’ certainty that he “was not up to the task” merely by
virtue of his ethnicity. Overcoming these obstacles, Carter became a pivotal
figure in the struggle for racial equality and one of the legal architects
in the NAACP attack on racial segregation.
George Washington Carver
Carver, George Washington. George Washington Carver in His Own Words. Ed.
Gary Kremer.
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Slave birth to international fame, Carver advised presidents, congress, and
world leaders. His biography describes how the African American scientist
overcame tremendous hardship to receive a college education and make
important discoveries in the field of agriculture.
Benjamin O. Davis
Davis, Benjamin O. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American: an Autobiography.
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Davis, the first black graduate of West Point in this century, led the
all-black 99th Fighter Squadron in WW II, commanded the integrated 51st
Fighter Wing in Korea and the 13th Air Force during the Vietnam war. Davis
recounts the struggle to gain professional recognition not only for himself
but for all black servicemen in the face of segregation, institutional
racial prejudice and local bigotry.
Earl B. Dickerson
Blakely, Robert. Earl B. Dickerson: a Voice for Freedom and Equality.
(Northwestern University Press, 2006)
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Dickerson was social activist, history-making lawyer, and successful
businessman. Arriving in Chicago as a stowaway on the Illinois Central
Railway, he rose to the chairmanship of the premier black life insurance
company in America, but he never lost his commitment to securing the social
and racial equality so lacking in the Mississippi of his youth.
Entrepreneurs
Clarke, Caroline. Take a Lesson: Today’s Black Achievers on How They Made It
and What They Learned Along the Way. (John Wiley, 2001)
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Successful corporate leaders provide insights that should inspire anyone who
wishes to reach similar heights. Contributors are honest about the obstacles
placed in their paths but show that even when the odds are against you, you
can succeed.
Kranz, Rachel. African-American Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs. (Facts
on File, 2004)
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150 biographical sketches of the most significant entrepreneurs from every
historical era make up this book. It includes individuals across eras,
geographical areas, types of industry, and sizes of enterprise, not only
well-known individuals (Quincy Jones, Wally "Famous" Amos, Don King) but
also inventors, shipbuilders, cigar makers, music executives, hotel keepers,
and restaurant owners. Of note are profiles of the first African-American
governor and the first African-American to serve as a director on the New
York Stock Exchange.
Olaudah Equiano
Walvin, James. An African’s Life: the Life and Times of Olaudah Equiano.
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Olaudah Equiano was 10 or 11 years old when kidnappers came into his Ibo
village and took him and his sister captive. Sold into slavery in Africa and
then shipped to the West Indies on a slave ship, Equiano never returned to
his homeland. As a freed slave he continued to work on ships and eventually
settled in England where he became active in the anti-slavery movement wrote
the story of his life. His autobiography was famous in its time and provides
unique insight into the experiences of an African as a slave and the
problems of a freed slave.
Simon Estes
Estes, Simon. Simon Estes--In His Own Voice: an Autobiography. (Landauer
Books, 2004)
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Grandson of a slave and star of the opera stage, Estes is an inspiring
African-American success story. He is the only African-American male to have
sung on virtually all the world's major opera stages, but he is acclaimed
not only for his voice but for his humanitarian efforts which benefit the
educational and heath needs of youth worldwide.
Lt. Henry O. Flipper
Flipper, Lt. Henry O. The Colored Cadet at West Point: The Autobiography of
Lt. Henry Ossian Flipper.
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The first African American graduate of West Point, Flipper served four years
in the West as a cavalry officer but was court-martialed & dismissed from
the service in 1882. He spent the rest of his long life attempting to clear
his name and was finally vindicated after his death. His work carried him to
Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain, and he left a record of achievement that
demonstrates his enormous talent and unrelenting effort.
James Forten
Winch, Julie. A Gentleman of Color; the Life of James Forten.
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Born into humble circumstances, James Forten ultimately became a wealthy
sailmaker, entrepreneur, and a leader of the Philadelphia free black
community. Having fought in the American Revolution, Forten firmly advocated
its principles of liberty and equality but as an African American, he was
confronted with the legal restrictions and racial prejudices of his time. He
spent a large portion of his life crusading to improve the conditions of
Philadelphia's free blacks and actively supported the cause of racial
equality during the antebellum period and beyond.
Dr. John H. Franklin
Franklin, Dr. John H. Mirror to America; the Autobiography of John Hope
Franklin.
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Franklin was evicted from whites-only train cars, confined to segregated
schools, threatened - once with lynching - and consistently subjected to
racism's denigration of his humanity. Yet he managed to receive a Ph.D. from
Harvard, become the first black historian to assume a full-professorship at
a white institution, and be appointed chair of the University of Chicago's
history department. He has reshaped the way African American history is
understood and taught and his work earned him the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
A.G. Gaston
Jenkins, Carol. Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American
Millionaire. (One World, 2004)
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The grandson of slaves, born into poverty in 1892 in the Deep South, Gaston
amassed a fortune worth well over $130 million and a business empire
spanning communications, real estate, and insurance. He was, by any measure,
a heroic figure whose wealth and influence bore comparison to J. P. Morgan
and Andrew Carnegie.
Fred D. Gray
Gray, Fred. Bus Ride to Justice: Changing the System by the System: the Life
and Works of Fred D. Gray, Preacher, Attorney, Politician.
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One of the most significant figures of the modern civil rights movement,
attorney Fred Gray, Sr. was a decisive factor in the efforts to end racial
segregation in the American South. As one of only two African-American
lawyers in Montgomery in 1955, he represented Rosa Parks during the famous
Montgomery bus boycott that eventually led to the integration of public
transportation in the city. He later fought to gain full voting rights for
African Americans and to desegregate Alabama's public schools and housing
projects. Gray continued to work as one of the nation's best-known civil
rights lawyers and in 2002 was elected president of the Alabama Bar
Association, the first African American to hole the top post.
Charles Hamilton Houston
McNeil, Genna R. Groundwork: Charles Hamilton Houston and the Struggle for
Civil Rights.
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Known to civil rights lawyers as the first “Mr. Civil Rights,” Houston
played a principal role in defining and pacing the legal phase of the
African American struggle against racial oppression from the early 1930s
until his death in 1950. As a teacher, litigator, and mentor from 1924 to
1950, he trained hundreds of African American students at Howard
University's Law School and advised scores of African American lawyers
affiliated with the NAACP and its Legal and Educational Defense Fund.
Joshua Houston
Prather, Patricia S. and Monday, Jane C.
From Slave to Statesman; the Legacy
of Joshua Houston, Servant to San Houston.
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Retells the life of the unusual man who was born a slave in Alabama in 1822
and served General Houston's family as blacksmith, carpenter, architect,
wheelwright, and driver. Joshua was unique among slaves: he was taught to
read and write, and was allowed to keep money he earned. He made good use of
both education and hard work, becoming one of the first black city aldermen
and property owners during Reconstruction.
Hal Jackson
Jackson, Hal. The House that Jack Built: My Life as a Trailblazer in
Broadcasting and Entertainment. (Colossus Books, 2003)
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Jackson fought adversity his entire life, from the deaths of both of his
parents when he was eight through homelessness and the payola scandal that
nearly cost him his broadcasting career and put him in prison. Determined,
ambitious and focused, he wasn't stopped by biting racial slurs or other
obstacles in his path and his sense of exhilaration comes through as he
relates how he overcame these barriers. A successful radio and television
host, he become the first African-American to buy a radio station and earned
a place in both the Broadcast Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame.
Charles S. Johnson
Robbins, Richard. Sidelines Activist; Charles S. Johnson and the Struggle
for
Civil Rights.
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A major figure behind the vibrant African-American art movement of the
1920s, Johnson has been recognized as one of the godfathers of the Harlem
Renaissance--a period much indebted to his editorship of the Urban League's
Opportunity magazine. His subsequent sociological studies of the 1930s and
1940s as well as his participation in countless academic and
government-sponsored committees have earned him praise as an inveterate
champion of race relations.
John Mercer Langston
Cheek, William and Cheek, Aimee. John Mercer Langston and the Fight for
Black Freedom 1829-1865.
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Langston was a light-skinned mulatto raised in a white privileged
environment until age four, when he was orphaned. Living with his brother in
the north, he became totally involved in the black community and after
graduation from Oberlin College pursued careers in education, law, and
diplomacy where he advocated for African-Americans by challenging racial
boundaries and contributing to their breakdown.
Thurgood Marshall
Williams, Juan. Thurgood Marshall, American Revolutionary.
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Supreme Court Justice Marshall came from a humble background and was
described as hard-drinking and somewhat crude. As an attorney for the NAACP
he worked with others to lay the foundation for the civil rights movement
and was eventually appointed to the Court by Lyndon Johnson. Marshall’s
experience on the Court led him to believe that that the failure of the
integration strategy was not caused primarily by the misdirection of the
black power movement but by the substantial and powerful national resistance
to the ideals of integration.
Benjamin O. Mays
Mays, Benjamin O. Born to Rebel; an Autobiography.
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Mays (1894-1984), a dean at Howard University, president of Morehouse
College, and president of the Atlanta School Board, explains, especially to
younger Americans of any race, what Negro-white relations were like in the
South and the U.S. in general during the decades before 1954, and recounts
what he characterizes as the snake-like progress of those relations.
Frederick L. McGhee
Nelson, Paul. Fredrick L. McGhee; a Life on the Color Line 1861-1912.
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McGhee, born a slave but later able to achieve a substantial career as an
attorney and civil rights activist, was a contemporary of Booker T.
Washington and W. E. B. DuBois and became the first black lawyer admitted to
the Minnesota bar. The succession of incremental advances and devastating
setbacks in McGhee's remarkable and accomplished life deserve to be
remembered alongside the victories won by the civil rights leaders he
influenced and whose breakthroughs he made possible.
Rufus McKinney
McKinney, Rufus. Beating the Odds: the Story of One Black Man’s Life in
Twentieth Century America. (Vantage Press, 2004)
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Elected Vice President for National Public Affairs for Southern California
Gas Company, appointed to the Maryland Commission on Human Relations by the
governor of Maryland in 1996, and inducted into the Academy of Law Alumni
Fellows by the Indiana University Law Schools in 2002 as one of that
institution's most distinguished graduates, McKinney has gained a great many
honors in his life while overcoming daunting obstacles. Born to poverty, he
earned a law degree and embarked on a successful career in the energy
industry and became the first African-American to head the Washington office
of a Fortune 500 company.
Menelik II
Marcus, Harold. The Life and Times of Menelik II, Ethiopia 1844-1913.
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Menelik II founded modern Ethiopia and his genius made it the only African
nation to successfully defeat the late nineteenth-century European
imperialists. The emperor's long list of accomplishments included creating
Ethiopia's first national money, postage stamps, bank, railroad, and modern
roads and bridges. Menelik was the first emperor to send students to study
in universities of other countries, and he set up a central European-style
government to administer the nation's affairs and unify the country.
Francis L. Nyalali
Widner, Jennifer. Building the Rule of Law and the Road to Judicial
Independence in Africa.
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This study of the way the rule of law has evolved in parts of Africa
examines the status of law and justice through the story of one man and his
times. Francis L. Nyalali, served as Chief Justice of Tanzania from 1976 to
1999, was involved in the struggle to build independent courts. Through the
work of men like Nyalali the law came to be seen as the guarantor of
democracy, a free economy, and human rights, particularly the rights of
women and those accused of crimes.
Cecil Poole
Haskins, James. Cecil Poole: a Life in the Law. (Ninth Judicial Circuit,
2003)
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Cecil Pool broke many barriers. He was the first African-American U.S.
Attorney in the continental United States and the first black judge of the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. His courage and
the story of his life serves as an inspiration no matter what profession one
may choose.
Ted Posten
Hauke, Kathleen. Ted Poston: Pioneer American Journalist.
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Poston is journalism's equivalent of Negro League ballplayers who spent time
in the "majors" after Jackie Robinson broke the color line. As a member of
Franklin D. Roosevelt's "black cabinet" when he headed the Negro News Desk
of the Office of War Information in Washington, Poston returned to The Post
after the war and provided an insider's viewpoint on segregation and the
Civil Rights Movement. His incisive reports on everyday racism were
eye-openers for the paper's mostly white readership and he often softened
the bitterness of his stories with humor. Poston's personal history with
discrimination paralleled the nation's history and his viewpoints on race
relations in the US came from personal experiences.
Posten, Ted. First Draft of History: Selected Articles by Ted Posten and
Kathleen Hauke.
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Poston was the first African American reporter to spend his career at a
major metropolitan daily—the New York Post. He infused the Post with the
black viewpoint on a wide variety of topics. This collection presents a
sample of his articles that blend street smarts, humor, and moral purpose.
Samuel DeWitt Proctor
Proctor, Samuel DeWitt. The Substance of Things Hoped For; a Memoir of
African-American Faith.
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Proctor—pastor emeritus of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, an
ex-professor and college administrator and former associate director of the
Peace Corps—has lived a life sustained by faith and clear-eyed optimism
about the possibilities and problems faced by American blacks. His
description of the complex culture of black America in the age of Jim Crow
is illuminating, and he weaves the personal narrative of his childhood and
youth into the greater story of black progress.
A. Philip Randolph
Taylor, Cynthia. A. Philip Randolph: the Religious Journey of an African
American Labor Leader. (New York University Press, 2005)
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One of the most effective black trade unionists in America, Randolph was
once known as "the most dangerous black man in America." He was a radical
journalist, a labor leader, and a pioneer of civil rights strategies who
lived a long, fascinating life, characterized by his single-minded drive to
achieve racial equality
for African Americans.
Virgil Richardson
Vinson, Ben. Flight: the Story of Virgil Richardson, a Tuskegee Airman in
Mexico.
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Richardson, a Tuskegee Airman unwilling to live with the racial constraints
he found upon returning to the U.S. following World War II, eventually
relocated to Mexico, joining a community of black expatriates. He tells of
conditions for the Tuskegee Airmen as they struggled and succeeded in
proving themselves. Returning to the U.S., Richardson could not tolerate the
Jim Crow conditions and left to live in Mexico. He describes the experience
of former black military men living in Mexico liberated from the racial
tensions of the U.S. and provides a history of blacks living in Mexico in
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in search of refuge from racial
animosity.
Paul Robeson
Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand.
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Paul Robeson--civil rights activist, singer, actor, law school graduate,
athlete, scholar, author--was perhaps the best known and most widely
respected black American of the 1930s and 1940s. His life, full of desire
and achievement, passion and conviction, was altered by the controversies
sparked by his radical politics and support for the communist cause. He died
in isolation but is remembered his integrity and firm commitment to his
beliefs despite their cost.
Carl Rowan
Rowan, Carl. Breaking Barriers: a Memoir.
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From a poverty-stricken childhood, Rowan rose to become an influential
journalist, and provides vivid eyewitness accounts of Martin Luther King,
the Montgomery bus boycott, Little Rock protests, and other signposts of the
civil rights movement. Rowan served in Kennedy’s and Johnson’s
administrations but this hard-hitting memoir does not hesitate to severely
criticize them and he is equally harsh on Presidents Reagan and Bush for
lack of commitment to education, housing and eradication of poverty.
Vivien Thomas
Thomas, Vivien. Partners of the Heart.
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The Depression left without funds for the education he craved so he became a
lab assistant at Johns Hopkins. His talent was such that he was teaching
operative techniques to white staff surgeons at Johns Hopkins 30 years
before the institution admitted its first black surgical resident. Despite
his lack of formal medical training, Thomas helped develop intricate
surgical techniques that ultimately saved thousands of lives, including
research that led to the widespread use of blood and plasma transfusions
during World War II. He was later awarded an honorary doctorate from Johns
Hopkins and became an official member of the medical school faculty.
Salome Thomas-El
Thomas-El, Salome. I Choose To Stay; a Black Teacher Refuses to Desert the
Inner City.
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Thomas-EL grew up in a single-parent household in a Philadelphia housing
project and returned to that same neighborhood to teach at a school with all
the social ills that have driven many teachers out of inner-city schools.
Determined that the kids needed "strive for an MBA, instead of the NBA,"
Thomas developed innovative programs that help inner-city children better
their lives.
James Milton Turner
Kremer, Gary. James Milton Turner and the Promise of America: The Public
Life of a Post-Civil War Black Leader.
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Born a slave and serving as a slave to an army officer in the Civil War,
Turner managed to get an education upon his release from the army and became
active in politics. Oratorical ability soon made him the acknowledged leader
of Missouri Negroes and as such a figure in Republican politics and
President Grant, appointed him consul general to Liberia, the first Negro,
to serve in the diplomatic corps.
Carter G. Woodson
Goggin, Jacqueline. Carter G. Woodson, a Life in Black History.
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The son of former slaves, Woodson became the first scholar of
African-American history, creating this field of university study. In 1926
Woodson created Negro History Week, which has now grown into Black History
Month, celebrated nationwide. He made a major contribution toward raising an
awareness of African-American cultural heritage.
Charles Young
Shellum, Brian. Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point.
(Bison Books, 2006)
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Young determined to get the best education possible, though his family
couldn't afford college. Placing second in his district in the West Point
entrance examinations, he got the appointment when the first-ranked
candidate resigned. Young encountered tremendous difficulties but his
determination and devotion to his country made him the third African
American West Point graduate and the only one from the nineteenth century
who had a long military career. |
