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Round Top's African American pioneers came into Texas in 1825 when Stephen F. Austin brought in 300 Anglo-Americans, and the people they enslaved, for the purpose of colonizing the area. Soon afterward, more slaves were bought in from other slaveholding states. After the Civil War ended, the descendants of these original Round Top pioneers began building their own community. Many earned money by toiling away in the cotton fields for the very men who had once enslaved them. Others earned money working as cowboys, washerwomen, barbers, or blacksmiths. In 1867, the group founded the Concord Missionary Baptist Church as a communal space for them to come together and pool their resources to buy their own land, build their own homes, and hire teachers, which led to the creation of the Concord Missionary Baptist Church Colored School. For generations, this school successfully educated freedmen, their children, and their descendants before finally closing its doors due to desegregation. Despite many challenges, they overcame obstacles that grew into a prosperous community.

The Old West Baltimore community is the nation's largest registered African American historic district. The designated Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District is the commercial main street in this area. The Colored High and Training School (later renamed Frederick Douglass High School), along with other segregated schools within the district, produced many prominent individuals, including Thurgood Marshall, the nation's first African American Supreme Court justice, and Lucy Diggs Slowe, educator, tennis champion, and one of the 16 founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. Many notable people have visited the area, such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. DuBois, Countee Cullen, Elton Fax, Madame C.J. Walker, Marcus Garvey, and Princess Wee Wee.

In all aspects of life, from politics and education to religion and business, the Black Baltimore community has been a leader for civil rights. From the 19th century until the 1970s, Baltimore has been at the forefront of various civil rights movements. Black Baltimoreans helped establish the Niagara Movement, the precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and had one of the most active NAACP branches, counting among its members pastors, politicians, entrepreneurs, educators, athletes, musicians, and others. Meritorious services were rendered by Rev. Harvey Johnson; William Ashbie Hawkins; Lillie Carroll Jackson; Lillie’s daughter Juanita Jackson Mitchell; Juanita’s husband, Clarence Maurice Mitchell Jr.; Walter Thomas Dixon; Enolia McMillan; Lena King Lee; and countless others who created a proud legacy of activism in the Monumental City.

From Nashville's earliest days as a pioneer town in Middle Tennessee, it would be nothing without its African American community.

Like many cities of the Antebellum South, Nashville was built by enslaved people, as African Americans built the first successful water system, maintained the streets, cultivated crops, and bred livestock. For years, Nashville was considered one of the wealthiest Southern cities, but after the Civil War, it struggled to regain that status while its newly freed Black citizens struggled to survive the South's Reconstruction and subsequent Jim Crow laws. As the Civil Rights era brought long-needed reforms, the Black community of Nashville has persevered through their determination, spiritual strength, and the unique leadership fostered by the visionary city they call home.

African Americans have lived in Boyle County, Kentucky, since the first settlement of the area in 1775. Mostly enslaved, by the Civil War, the county had one of the largest population of free Blacks in the area with the exception of Jefferson and Fayette Counties.

Their presence in Danville, the county seat, but also in population centers scattered throughout the county resulted in a deep and broad influence, much of which was lost in the early 1900s due to out-migration, deaths, and especially urban renewal between 1963 and 1975. Within Danville, the South Second Street area was the heart of the Black community. Restaurants, groceries, pool halls, barbershops, and beauty shops were the center of commerce from the 1890s until the 1970s. The Bate School also drew students from the outlying settlements that did not have high schools of their own. Today, the majority of the African American community continues to live in the city of Danville, with small pockets in Perryville and outlying areas of Boyle County.

Michael Thomas Hughes is a native of Boyle County and grew up in a segregated society. Michael J. Denis is a retired history teacher from Maine who moved to Boyle County and immediately fell in love with its history. The photographs in this book are mostly from the Danville Boyle County African American Historical Society Inc. collection (DBCAAHS), of which the authors are charter members.

Enslaved Africans and free people of color of Louisiana deserve the title of Founding Fathers just as much as the French, the Spanish, and the Americans. In spite of their subjugated role as slaves, African Americans of Louisiana, and subsequently New Orleans, were contributors to the success of the state and the city far beyond their role within the labor force. Imported into the Louisiana Territory by John Law's Company of the Indies, enslaved Africans, fed on a pound of corn a day, gave birth to American figures of the 19th and 20th centuries. Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, Homer Plessy, Marie Laveau, Buddy Bolden, Julies Lion, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, the fighting men of the Louisiana Native Guard, Ernest Dutch Morial, and many other African Americans contributed to the growth and development of New Orleans. Every African American citizen of New Orleans is intrinsically connected to the city's cultural and political landscape.

Some of the earliest abolition movements in the country started in East Tennessee, and Chattanooga has continued this proud tradition of being a progressive city for African Americans. The city benefits from its many successful
African-American businesses and has produced some of the state's most recognized black leaders.

Black America: Orlando illuminates the lives and accomplishments of African Americans in one of Central Florida's largest cities. Images from the late 1800s to the mid-1980s depict schools, churches, businesses, housing developments, prominent homes, celebrations, and significant personalities in Orlando's black community. This volume guides readers through more than 150 years of remarkable history.

Whether assisting escapes through the Underground Railroad, forming banks, publishing a newspaper, or providing recreational facilities, Portsmouth's African Americans created one of the most stable middle-class black communities in America.

African Americans in Portsmouth built a strong, insulated community because they were cognizant of the need to look inward. Early 20th-century leaders such as Dr. William Reid, Nancy T. Wheeler, and the Reverend Harvey N. Johnson Sr. were civic models and guiding forces for a community emerging from the ravages of slavery, and enduring the hardships of segregation.

Black America: Portsmouth, Virginia captures the world of an ever-changing community and a people who persevered, no matter the odds.

Georgia and the Power of the Vote traces the history of Georgia’s enfranchisement and its influence on American politics from 1865 to 2023.

Since Reconstruction, Georgia’s enfranchisement history has captured the nation’s attention. During multiple waves, massive voter registration, mobilization, and suppression efforts were influenced by the pull-pull forces of those wanting to sustain power and those untiringly committed to acquiring it; those hoping to maintain the status quo and those steadfastly determined to disrupt it; and those trying to exercise their right to vote and those trying to suppress it. This historical tug-of-war amongst Georgians has consistently had national implications. The outcome, nevertheless, has shaped national policy, influenced landmark court decisions, ignited social movements, and produced national leaders.

Norfolk has been a center of African-American life since this country's humble beginnings, when indentured African servants arrived in 1619 to the Tidewater region. Since that time, the African-American population has endured the atrocities of slavery, poverty, and inequality, and has emerged, through a remarkable combination of hard work, perseverance, and faith, as a vibrant community and an integral component to the identity and success of Norfolk and surrounding areas.

The Civil Rights movement in Atlanta is most often equated with the tireless work and inspiring words of Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr.; however, a host of other courageous individuals, both known and unknown, came before, during, and after Dr. King to face the challenges of racism and segregation in the South. This unique pictorial history celebrates these people, their accomplishments, and the legacy they left for today's African-American youth in Atlanta.