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Born a slave in Virginia in 1856, Booker T. Washington rose in prominence to become black America's foremost spokesman. This is the dramatic autobiographical account of Washington's struggle to succeed and prosper in a country that refused to acknowledge his existence. From his fight for an education to his founding of the world-renowned Tuskegee Institute, Up From Slavery is one of the most significant and defining works in American literature.
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Completed shortly before his assassination in 1965, Malcolm X's autobiography depicts a child born into rage and despair, who turned to street-hustling and cocaine in the Harlem ghetto, followed by prison, where he converted to the Black Muslims and honed the energy and brilliance that made him one of the most important political figures of his time. It also charts the spiritual journey that took him beyond militancy and led to his murder.
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In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man, has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey, first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of...
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"A harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American historyBorn a free man in New York, Solomon Northup was abducted in Washington, D.C., in 1841 and spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity as a slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. After his rescue, he published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life--perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives. It became an immediate bestseller and today...
5) The short and tragic life of Robert Peace: a brilliant young man who left Newark for the Ivy League
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Examines "the short life of a talented young African-American man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets--and of one's own nature--when he returns home"--Amazon.com.
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This poignant and powerful narrative tells the dramatic story of Kunta Kinte, snatched from freedom in Africa and brought by ship to America and slavery, and his descendants. Drawing on the oral traditions handed down in his family for generations, the author traces his origins back to the seventeen-year-old Kunta Kinte, who was abducted from his home in Gambia and transported as a slave to colonial America. In this account Haley provides an imaginative...
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On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four...
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"Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her incisive perspective on both herself and the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories, which grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in...
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First published in 1886, "Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People" is the fascinating biography of Harriet Tubman by American author and historian Sarah H. Bradford. The second of Bradford's works on the life of the courageous former slave and abolitionist, Tubman herself worked closely with the author to ensure that the details of her amazing life were captured accurately. Bradford's biography begins with Tubman's birth into slavery in Maryland in...
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Excerpt: "The writer of this Narrative was hired by his master to a "soul-driver," and has witnessed all the horrors of the traffic, from the buying up of human cattle in the slave-breeding States, which produced a constant scene of separating the victims from all those whom they loved, to their final sale in the southern market, to be worked up in seven years, or given over to minister to the lust of southern Christians. Many harrowing scenes are...
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"B is for Beautiful, Brave, and Bright! And for a Book that takes a Bold journey through the alphabet of Black history and culture. Letter by letter, The ABCs of Black History celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy. It's a story of big ideas--P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments--G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures--H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for...
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Few men in American history are as controversial as Malcolm X. In this provocative biography, Myers, winner of a Newbery Honor and four-time Coretta Scott King Award winner, presents a forthright portrait of a complex man whose life reflected the major events of our times.
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This biography of Malcolm X draws on new research to trace his life from his troubled youth through his involvement in the Nation of Islam, his activism in the world of Black Nationalism, and his assassination. Years in the making, it is a definitive biography of the legendary black activist. Of the great figures in twentieth-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story,...
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Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) was an American novelist, women's rights activist, abolitionist, journalist, and activist for Native American rights. Child is famous for her fiction and domestic manuals, which enjoyed international popularity during the mid 19th century. However, her work also drew controversy due to her tackling such issues as male dominance and white supremacy. First published in 1865, "The Freedmen's Book" contains a collection of...
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"I want to talk about the first Northern urban generation of Negroes. I want to talk about the experiences of a misplaced generation, of a misplaced people in an extremely complex, confused society. This is a story of their searching, their dreams, their sorrows, their small and futile rebellions, and their endless battle to establish their own place in America's greatest metropolis--and in America itself."--Foreword, p. 7.
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