Read complete books and articles on: African Americans

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16 of the Best Books and Articles on: African Americans

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Black Legacy: America's Hidden Heritage » Read Now
by William D. Piersen. 264 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...often enough that Africans and African Americans are presented as cultural founding...Take the long-held view that African Americans were Americas true peasantry...middling...
2.

From Black to African American: A New Social Representation » Read Now
by Gina Philogene. 237 pgs.

Collections: History, Psychology, Entire Library

An analysis of the recent switch from the name "Black" to "African American" symbolizes a reconceptualization of Americans of African descent away from race to culture. This book examines the emergence of a new representation whose rapid spread has been fuelled by widely shared projections of a...
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An analysis of the recent switch from the name "Black" to "African American" symbolizes a reconceptualization of Americans of African descent away from race to culture. This book examines the emergence of a new representation whose rapid spread has been fuelled by widely shared projections of a different future capable of overcoming the legacy of racism.
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3.

Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity » Read Now
by Ron Eyerman. 302 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory--a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Ron Eyerman offers...
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This book explores the formation of the African-American identity through the theory of cultural trauma. The trauma in question is slavery, not as an institution or as personal experience, but as collective memory--a pervasive remembrance that grounded a people's sense of itself. Ron Eyerman offers insights into the intellectual and generational conflicts of identity-formation which have a truly universal significance, and provides a new and compelling account of the birth of African-American identity.
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4.

The African-American Predicament » Read Now
by Christopher H. Foreman Jr. 216 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

As the 20th century ends, the fate of the African-American community remains a central and hotly contested focus of our national political discourse. Although American race relations, and the structure of opportunities facing most African-Americans, have dramatically improved in recent decades...
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As the 20th century ends, the fate of the African-American community remains a central and hotly contested focus of our national political discourse. Although American race relations, and the structure of opportunities facing most African-Americans, have dramatically improved in recent decades, daunting challenges and questions remain. This book examines the vexing reality of racial conditions in America today: improved overall, but far more complicated than they used to seem, and in important respects continually depressing. Thirteen provocative and timely essays--by some of the most highly respected experts in the nation--present thoughtful, and often-competing, assessments of African-American progress and of the prospects for its further enhancement. The authors examine the educational achievement disparities and education policy choices confronting black America; the track record of faith-based organizations in improving poor inner-city communities; the continuing impediments to residential integration;,and data-based arguments for continuing affirmative action programs. The final chapter discusses the feasibility of "reaching beyond race" to build stronger political coalitions for racially-progressive policies. In addition to the editor, the authors include Edward G. Carmines, Linda Darling-Hammond, John J. DiIulio, Jr., Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nathan Glazer, Jay P. Greene, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Christopher Jencks, Phillip Klinkner, Glenn C. Loury, Orlando Patterson, Paul E. Peterson, Meredith Phillips, Rogers Smith, Paul M. Sniderman, Abigail Thernstrom, and Stephan Thernstrom.
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5.

Black Lives: Essays in African American Biography » Read Now
by James L. Conyers. 222 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

These fifteen chapters comprise biographical sketches of notable but heretofore unknown (or lesser known) African Americans, among them General Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr. (the first African American four-star general in the U.S. Air Force); William Levi Dawson (a composer); Vinnette Carroll (a...
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These fifteen chapters comprise biographical sketches of notable but heretofore unknown (or lesser known) African Americans, among them General Daniel "Chappie" James, Jr. (the first African American four-star general in the U.S. Air Force); William Levi Dawson (a composer); Vinnette Carroll (a director and playwright); Elizabeth Ross Haynes (an early political speaker and activist); Richard Allen (founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church); Besse Head (a South African-born writer); Maria Stewart (a nineteenth-century African American writer); and a number of others.
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6.

We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era » Read Now
by Robert C. Smith, Ronald W. Walters. 396 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
7.

Not Slave, Not Free: The African American Economic Experience since the Civil War » Read Now
by Jay R. Mandle. 140 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...that the incomes received by African Americans were disproportionately low...arguable that poverty among African Americans more than any other concern...necessary to...
8.

Long Memory: The Black Experience in America » Read Now
by Mary Frances Berry, John W. Blassingame. 490 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...twentieth century the African memory of Afro-Americans permeated American...Third, although African slaves contributed...symbolized the Americans ability to lie...America...
9.

Black History and Black Identity: A Call for a New Historiography » Read Now
by W. D. Wright. 247 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This study contends that historians and intellectuals failed to understand the difference between race and ethnicity, which has in turn impaired their ability to understand who Black people are in America. The author argues that Black Americans are to be distinguished from other categories of black...
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This study contends that historians and intellectuals failed to understand the difference between race and ethnicity, which has in turn impaired their ability to understand who Black people are in America. The author argues that Black Americans are to be distinguished from other categories of black people in the country: black Africans, West Indians, or Hispanics. While Black people are members of the black race, as are other groups of people, they are a distinct ethnic group of that race. This conceptual failure has hampered the ability of historians to define Black experience in America and to study it in the most accurate, authentic, and realistic manner possible.
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10.

The Journey to the Promised Land: The African American Struggle for Development since the Civil War » Read Now
by Dickson A. Mungazi. 215 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The African American struggle for advancement since the late 19th century has had an enormous impact on American society in general. This examination of African American development looks at group progress in four critical areas of national life: economic, political, educational, and social...
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The African American struggle for advancement since the late 19th century has had an enormous impact on American society in general. This examination of African American development looks at group progress in four critical areas of national life: economic, political, educational, and social. Determined to forge a new identity based upon principles of equality, African American leadership and the liberal whites who supported them have achieved many goals in their attempts to forge a new role for African Americans in the political development of the nation. Mungazi includes discussion of important watershed events and key individuals who helped to redefine our nation's history.
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11.

Uplifting the Race: Black Leadership, Politics, and Culture in the Twentieth Century » Read Now
by Kevin K. Gaines. 314 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...the tactics of struggle for African Americans. "We need to expand the civil-rights...argued. Malcolm declared that African Americans should circumvent a...
12.

Black Leadership for Social Change » Read Now
by Jacob U. Gordon. 242 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book presents a comprehensive overview of Black leadership in every aspect of American life, including movements for social justice, education, business, and politics. In the quest for human rights and social advancement, African-American leaders have emerged to lead the fight to overcome...
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This book presents a comprehensive overview of Black leadership in every aspect of American life, including movements for social justice, education, business, and politics. In the quest for human rights and social advancement, African-American leaders have emerged to lead the fight to overcome racial and economic barriers. This struggle has influenced the exercise of Black leadership in many other areas and the author uses an interdisciplinary approach to reveal the changes, continuities, and variety of African-American approaches to effective leadership. The book also suggests a theoretical framework for future research on the impact of Black leadership in America.
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13.

Promises to Keep: African-Americans and the Constitutional Order, 1776 to the Present » Read Now
by Donald G. Nieman. 275 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

African-Americans have had an ambivalent relationship with the Constitution for more than two hundred years. Throughout most of American history, racist interpretations of the Constitution have sanctioned a legal system supportive of slavery, marked blacks as inferiors, rendered them politically...
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African-Americans have had an ambivalent relationship with the Constitution for more than two hundred years. Throughout most of American history, racist interpretations of the Constitution have sanctioned a legal system supportive of slavery, marked blacks as inferiors, rendered them politically powerless, and denied them justice and access to society's resources. Yet both black and white opponents of slavery and racial subordination--from antebellum abolitionists to twentieth-century civil rights leaders--have found principles in the Constitution that support their demands for freedom, citizenship, and equality. In Promises to Keep, Donald G. Nieman tells the story of this paradoxical relationship, tracing it from the birth of the Republic to current battles over school segregation, voting rights, and affirmative action. While Nieman examines the devastating effects of constitutionally sanctioned racism on the lives of African-Americans, he also shows how blacks and their white allies have been active agents of constitutional change since the early nineteenth century, forging an egalitarian constitutionalism and using it to press a reluctant nation to honor its long-deferred promise of equality. Compact, lively, and readable, Promises to Keep illuminates the past and offers a fresh perspective on the current debate over civil rights, showing how it too often ignores the tragic history of law and race in America. This is the first volume of Bicentennial Essays on the Bill of Rights, an important series co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians and Oxford University Press, under the general editorship of Kermit L. Hall.
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14.

African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness » Read Now
by Milton C. Sernett. 598 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...Islamic or Jewish identity, most African Americans have adopted and adapted Christian...the religious experience of African Americans encompasses more than the...
15.

The Fruits of Integration: Black Middle-Class Ideology and Culture, 1960-1990 » Read Now
by Charles T. Banner-Haley. 238 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The role of black middle-class culture & ideology in reshaping mainstream America.
16.

The Civil Rights Movement » Read Now
by Peter B. Levy. 226 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Designed for secondary school and college student research, The Civil Rights Movement is a one-stop guide that includes clear analysis and ready reference components. Combining narrative description, analytical essays, chronology, biographical profiles, and the text of key primary documents, this...
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Designed for secondary school and college student research, The Civil Rights Movement is a one-stop guide that includes clear analysis and ready reference components. Combining narrative description, analytical essays, chronology, biographical profiles, and the text of key primary documents, this work fills a gap in the existing literature. Drawing on the most recent research, Levy, author of the acclaimed Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, provides an outstanding introduction to the Civil Rights movement, its development, issues, and leaders. Six essays analyze the crucial aspects of the movement, including a concluding essay that assesses its legacy. Ready reference features include: a chronology of events; lengthy biographical profiles of 20 key civil rights activists; the text of 15 seminal documents valuable for student research; a glossary of selected terms; and an annotated bibliography of recommended further reading and audiovisual materials.
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