WINNER OF THE ANNE B. AND JAMES B. MCMILLAN PRIZEA powerful collection of firsthand stories from the Tuskegee Institute High School Class of 1964—students who came of age in the crucible of the Civil Rights Movement. Their stories uncover the bold choices of their ancestors who chose to stay and help shape the South.Children of the Struggle and the Ancestors Who Stayed, edited by Sonjia Parker Redmond and Beatrice J. Adams...

"Fascinating. . . . [Graham] has made a major contribution both to African-American studies and the larger American picture." —New York TimesDebutante cotillions. Million-dollar homes. Summers in Martha's Vineyard. Membership in the Links, Jack & Jill, Deltas, Boule, and AKAs. An obsession with the right schools, families, social clubs, and skin complexion. This is the world of America’s Black upper class and the focus of the first book written abo...

This “viscerally powerful . . . compilation of firsthand accounts of the Jim Crow era” won the Lillian Smith Book Award and the Carey McWilliams Award (Publisher’s Weekly, starred review).Based on interviews collected by the Behind the Veil Oral History Project at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, this remarkable book presents for the first time the most extensive oral history ever compiled of African American life under segregation.

At the greatest moments and in the cruelest times, black women have been a crucial part of America's history. Now, the inspiring history of black women in America is explored in vivid detail by two leaders in the fields of African American and women's history.A Shining Thread of Hope chronicles the lives of black women from indentured servitude in the early American colonies to the cruelty of antebellum plantations, from the reign of lynch law in the Jim Crow South...

"Riveting . . . American Tapestry is not only the remarkable story of the [Michelle Obama's] family, but also a microcosm of this country's story as well" ( USA Today).In an extraordinary feat of genealogical research, Rachel L. Swarns—a veteran journalist and renowned scholar of American race relations—tells the fascinating and hitherto untold story of Ms. Obama's black, white, and multiracial ancestors; a history that the First Lady herself did n...

Combining a fascinating history of the first U.S. high school for African Americans with an unflinching analysis of urban public-school education today, First Class explores an underrepresented and largely unknown aspect of black history while opening a discussion on what it takes to make a public school successful. In 1870, in the wake of the Civil War, citizens of Washington, DC, opened the Preparatory High School for Colored Youth, the first black public high school in the Unit...

Dorothy Height marched at civil rights rallies, sat through tense White House meetings, and witnessed every major victory in the struggle for racial equality. Yet as the sole woman among powerful, charismatic men, someone whose personal ambition was secondary to her passion for her cause, she has received little mainstream recognition -- until now. In her memoir, Dr. Height, now ninety-one, reflects on a life of service and leadership. We witness her childhood encounters with racism and th...

Named one of Smithsonian's Best Books of 20232024 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Book Award2024 Philip Taft Labor History Award2024 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Nonfiction Longlist**2024 L.A. Times Book Award Finalist in HistoryAn award-winning historian illuminates the adversities and joys of the Black working class in America through a stunning narrative centered on ...

This in-depth look at the civil rights movement goes to the places where pioneers of the movement marched, sat-in at lunch counters, gathered in churches; where they spoke, taught, and organized; where they were arrested, where they lost their lives, and where they triumphed.Award-winning journalist Charles E. Cobb Jr., a former organizer and field secretary for SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), knows the journey intimately. He guides us through Washington, D.C., Mar...

An intimate and searching account of the life and legacy of one of America’s towering educators, a woman who dared to center the progress of Black women and girls in the larger struggle for political and social liberationWhen Mary McLeod Bethune died, tributes in newspapers around the country said the same thing: she should be on the Mount Rushmore of Black American achievement. Indeed, Bethune is the only Black American whose statue stands in Statuary Hall in the ...

A vibrant biography of the woman who shaped the political climate of Daytona Beach with her civil rights, women's rights, and education activism.Mary McLeod Bethune was often called the "First Lady of Negro America," but she made significant contributions to the political climate of Florida as well. From the founding of the Daytona Literary and Industrial School for Training Negro Girls in 1904, Bethune galvanized African American women for change. She created an e...

A Black descendant of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings’ family explores America’s racial reckoning through the prism of her ancestors—both the enslaver and the enslaved.Gayle Jessup White had long heard the stories passed down from her father’s family, that they were direct descendants of Thomas Jefferson—lore she firmly believed, though others did not. For four decades the acclaimed journalist and genealogy enthusiast researched her connection to Thomas Jefferso...