African-American

Here is the black Chicago family album, of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find the American Dream.

The story of black Chicago is so rich that few know it all. It began long before the city itself. Wells, the Eighth Regiment, Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and much more . . . including a guy named Obama. ""The first white man here was a black man,"" Potowatami natives reportedly said about Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the brown-skinned man recognized as Chicago's first non-Indian settler. It's all here: from the site of DuSable's cabin--now smack-dab in the middle of Chicago's Magnificent Mile--to images of famous and infamous residents like boxers Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Here are leaders and cultural touchstones like Jesse Binga's bank, Robert S. Abbott's Chicago Defender, legendary filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Ida B. Here is the black Chicago family album, of folks who made and never made the headlines, and pictures and stories of kinship and fellowship of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find their piece of the American Dream. Chicago has been called the ""Second City,"" but black Chicago is second to none.

Long before it came to prominence as the model city of the New South, Atlanta was a hotbed of entertainment, business, and civic life for African Americans.

At the same time that Harlem was undergoing its acclaimed renaissance, Atlanta could boast of excellent colleges, a thriving social environment, and an entertainment scene that could rival those of much larger cities, eventually earning the title "the new Motown. '? From Auburn Avenue, the hub of the city's African American activity, a spirit of vibrant change and excitement radiated out to reach people across America, and draw them into the Hollywood of the South.

Join authors Vermelle Diamond Ely, Grace Hoey Drain, and Amy Rogers as they celebrate the rich history of the black community in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As in many cities in the early 20th-century South, the African-American citizens of Charlotte created their own society that mirrored the larger white community. Yet, black Charlotte was always self-sustaining, with its own schools, library, and businesses. Second Ward High School (1923-1969) was the area's first high school for blacks, and although the school and much of its surroundings have since been razed, the photo archive at the Second Ward Alumni House Museum helps keep alive the memories of the school and the entire black community.

The riveting, heart wrenching story of slave traders and abolitionists, kidnappers and freedmen, cruelty and courage on Maryland's eastern shore.

African Americans, both enslaved and free, were vital to the economy of the Eastern Shore of Maryland before the Civil War. Maryland became a slave society in colonial days when tobacco ruled. Some enslaved people, like Anthony Johnson, earned their freedom and became successful farmers. After the Revolutionary War, others were freed by masters disturbed by the contradiction between liberty and slavery. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman ran from masters on the Eastern Shore and devoted their lives to helping other enslaved people with their words and deeds. Jacqueline Simmons Hedberg uses local records, including those of her ancestors, to tell a tale of slave traders and abolitionists, kidnappers and freedmen, cruelty and courage.

Join author and educator Evelyn Scales Thompson, Ph.D. as she recounts the rich history of the black communities in and around Surry County, North Carolina

From slavery in the 1800s to freedom in the 1950s, Black America Series: Around Surry County traces the footsteps of African Americans through their transition from house servants and field hands to landowners, farmers, and successful small business proprietors. This detailed pictorial history celebrates and honors the strong faith, courage, and determination of the Surry County area's black community.

From the Siege of Petersburg to the struggle for civil rights, the history of Petersburg's African American community is detailed in this volume.

The city of Petersburg has distinguished itself as a special place for African American history. African Americans in Petersburg have overcome racial and political obstacles placed in their paths. The city was the site of one of the largest free black populations in the South leading up to the Civil War, and more black soldiers participated in the Siege of Petersburg than in any other Civil War engagement. The city is the location of First Baptist Church, the nation's oldest black church; has produced trailblazers in political life, including Virginia's first black mayor; and is the site of the famous Halifax Triangle, a thriving black business district. This diverse and poignant collection of photographs reveals a heritage rich in entrepreneurial spirit, devotion to church life, and unshakable courage in the struggle for civil rights.

Filled with remarkable vintage photographs, Black America: Augusta, Georgia captures the essence of the African-American heritage in this historic Southern community.

The Garden City has produced a wide variety of intellectual and political pioneers, including a handful of educators who were instrumental in the pivotal Brown versus Board of Education case. Within the pages of this volume, their stories unfold.

The civil rights movement in South Carolina has an epic and tumultuous history, beginning with the very first statewide meeting of the NAACP in 1939.

With stories of sit-ins, movements and the integration of state universities, this is the first comprehensive history of South Carolina's civil rights struggles. And behind every achievement are the major legal rulings that protected them, interspersed with the familiar names of Thurgood Marshall, Matthew Perry, Ernest A. Finney and Judge Waties Waring. Join former South Carolina NAACP president and activist James L. Felder as he recounts the epic struggle African Americans have faced, from fighting for the right to vote to the desegregation of public spaces and all the efforts in between.

See how the African-American community has played a vital role in the development and success of Vance County, North Carolina.

The African-American community has been an integral part of Vance County's history over the years. From antebellum times, to Reconstruction, to the Civil Rights era, to the present, this community has been through it all. Making a difference in all walks of life--educational, spiritual, commercial, and civic--the black citizens of this historic Tar Heel county share an impressive story, one marked by a determination and undeniable will to succeed through economic hardships and social challenges.

An ambitious, honest portrait of the Black experience in flyover country. One of The St. Louis Post Dispatch's Best Books of 2020.

Black Americans have been among the hardest hit by the rapid deindustrialization and accompanying economic decline that have become so synonymous with the Midwest. After the 2016 election, many traditional media outlets renewed their attention on the conditions of "Middle America," but they often marginalized or completely overlooked the experience of the Black people who live there.

Edited by Terrion Williamson, the director of the Black Midwest Initiative, Black in the Middle places the voices of Black midwesterners front and center. Filled with compelling personal narratives, thought-provoking art, and searing commentaries, this anthology explores the various meanings and experiences of blackness throughout the Rust Belt, the Midwest, and the Great Plains. It brings together people from major metropolitan centers like Detroit and Chicago as well as smaller cities and rural areas where the lives of Black residents have too often gone unacknowledged to create "a timely, compelling collection that allows predominantly Black Midwesterners to reclaim their home, histories, and future."

A much-needed corrective to common narratives about the Midwest.

Vivian Gibson's bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood has been hailed by critics as "a spare, elegant jewel of a work" and "a love letter to Gibson's childhood."

Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as "progress." A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson's large family?her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father?and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson's words, "This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl?a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people."

Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, The Last Children of Mill Creek is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history?or for anyone who was once a child.

But it is not only this tragedy that has given Walton County a sense of identity. Indeed, other lesser-known events and accomplishments have contributed to its history. Whether boasting Atlanta's first black millionaire, a member of the U.S. Olympic basketball team, or a high school state football championship, Walton County has thrived both in and out of the national spotlight.