Black History Research Guide
Scope
This resource guide was written to promote and enhance our celebration of Black History Month throughout MPTC.
Books and Audiovisuals
Selected books and audiovisuals are listed closer to the end of this research guide. However, others can be accessed via the
MPTC Catalog. Possible keywords to use: Civil Rights, Martin Luther King, slavery, segregation, African American, African diaspora.
Online Photo Gallery
The Unites States Civil Rights Movement at America.gov
http://photos.state.gov/galleries/usinfo-photo/39/civil_rights_07/1.html
Online Timelines
From Information Please
1. Slavery in America Timeline: http://www.infoplease.com/timelines/slavery.html
2. Civil Rights Timeline: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html
3. Timeline Spanning the Slave Trade to Affirmative Action: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtimeline.html
From the New York Public Library
1. Abolition of the Slave Trade: http://abolition.nypl.org/timeline/
2. African Presence in the Americas: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Schomburg/text/timeline-all.html
From Black Press USA: http://www.blackpressusa.com/history/timeline.asp?era=223&block=1
From BlackPast.org: http://www.blackpast.org/?q=african-american-history-timeline-home-page
Audiovisuals
To Form a More Perfect Union: Milestones of the Civil Rights Movement
FdL Campus, call number E 185.61 .T64 2005 (VHS)
Using rare and compelling archival footage, this 38-minute DVD covers events that changed our nation between 1948 and 1965. Includes footage of the Montgomery bus boycott, the Little Rock nine, the Selma march and seven other milestones.
Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Right Years a PBS video series
FdL Campus, call number E [FS] 185.615 .E9 v.1-6 (VHS)
This winner of six Emmys was first shown on PBS in 1987. It is the most comprehensive television documentary on the American civil rights movement ever produced. Incisive interviews done in the mid-1980’s were added to rare historical film, resulting in a series that allows you to relive “the pain, the protest, the sacrifice and triumph of the grass roots struggle for racial equality” (from the series’ packaging).
Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads a PBS Video Series
FdL Campus, call number E [FS] 185.185 E7 v.1-8 (VHS)
Covering the period of 1964 through the mid-1980’s, this sequel series does for this later era what the earlier series did for what were considered “America’s Civil Rights Years.”
Martin Luther King: “I Have a Dream,” The Electrifying Speech That Changed the Hearts and Minds of a Bitterly Divided Nation
FdL Campus, call number E [FS] 185.97 .K5 A5 1998 (VHS)
From the back cover: “When 200,000 civil rights marchers – black and white – gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, they expected to hear strong words form their spiritual leader Martin Luther King. What they did not expect was a speech of such heartfelt passion and poetic eloquence that it echoes still in our memory.” 25 minutes.
Been to the Mountaintop: [Highlights of Speeches given by] Martin Luther King, Jr.
FdL Campus, call number E 185.97 .K5 B44 2006 (DVD)
Excerpts from King’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, his reflections of peaceful marches, statements made on the Viet Nam War in 1967, and the “Been to the Mountaintop” speech of 1968. Highlights from a total of 10 speeches.
Found Voices: The Slave Narratives
FdL Campus, call number E 444 .F68 2004 (DVD)
Ted Koppel of ABC News presents firsthand accounts of former slaves, recorded in the 1930’s and 40’s and digitally remastered. According to the cover, this 22 minute DVD is a “profoundly moving program,” in which former slaves tell what it was like “to be bought and sold like cattle, only to be liberated with nowhere to go and no one to turn to for help.”
Books: West Bend Campus
African Americans and Civil Rights: From 1619 to the Present
WB Campus, call number: E 185.L45 1996
Part of the Social Issues in American History Series this book is a survey of the oppression of blacks in the United States and the gains that were achieved against racism by blacks and their allies. Included are numerous biographical sketches of important persons in black history along with a glossary and chronology.
Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
WB Campus, call number: DT 14.A374435 2005
This five volume set is a great place to find out about all things related to African American history. As the title suggests it is not limited to important figures in the United States but includes information on the history and peoples of the African continent.
Black Settlers in Rural Wisconsin
WB Campus, call number: F 590.N4 C6
This is a brief history of African Americans who settled in the area that is now the state of Wisconsin. The time period covered is the late 1700s to the early 1900s. The book includes many photographs.
Rap and Hip Hop
WB Campus, call number: E 185.86.R35 2003
This book traces the history of rap and hip hop from its roots in early black music to the present. Along the way readers can discover more about the rise of hip hop as a powerful force in the popular culture of the United States.
To Make Our World Anew: A History of African-Americans
WB Campus, call number: E 185.T68 2000
This book “chronicles five centuries of African American struggles for survival, identity, freedom and political power.” Includes many illustrations and a chronology of important dates in African-American history from 1441-1999.
Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History
WB Campus, call number: E 185.K545 2007
This book chronicles “America’s uneven progress towards a more racially just society”. The author’s main argument is that American’s have only rarely reformed race relations because it was the right thing to do. In many cases progress was the result of the unintended consequences of other events.
Books: Fond du Lac Campus
The Face of Our Past: Images of Black Women from Colonial America to the Present
FdL Campus, call number: E 185.86 .F33 1999
Consisting mostly of photos taken after the Civil War, this book also includes drawings as well as captions which provide context. Former Congresswoman Carol Mosely Braun calls this a “beautiful and important book” which “puts a face on the most faceless Americans.”
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
Two copies at the FdL Campus, call number: E 185.97 H25 A33
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Alex Haley tells the history of his family, and in doing so, he rediscovers the history of an entire people. Newsweek described Roots as being “bold” and “extraordinary.” Behind the story that was later made into a television miniseries lies a lot of thorough historical research.
The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (edited by Clayborne Carson)
FdL Campus, call number: E 185.97 .K5 A52 1998
Martin Luther King, of course, was too focused on helping other people in his short life to actually sit down and write an autobiography per se. But from Dr. King’s many papers, historian and civil rights activist Clayborne Carson managed to produce what The New Yorker called “an exceptionally successful” account of King’s life using King’s own words.
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950’s Through the 1980’s by Henry Hampton and Steve Fayer.
FdL Campus, call number: E 185.61 .H224 1991
Numerous eyewitness accounts are reproduced in this book, which covers 31 events, including the death of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, James Meredith’s enrollment at Ole Miss, and lesser-known episodes of the civil rights movement.
Black Profiles in Courage by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alan Steinberg.
Available at Beaver Dam and Fond du Lac Campuses, call number: E 185.96 .A18 1996
Legendary basketball player Abdul-Jabbar was motivated to write this book in order to give the Black youth of our country heroes to look up to. However, after the book was written, Colin Powell praised the book for its stories of courage that “will both educate and inspire readers of all ages and races who still believe in the indomitability of the human spirit.”
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet A. Jacobs and Edited by Jean Fagan Yellin
FdL Campus, call number: E 444 .J17 A3 1978
This autobiographical account was first published in 1861 to raise awareness of the ongoing evils of slavery in America. It is considered to be the major antebellum autobiography of a black woman.
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation by David W. Blight.
FdL Campus, call number: E 450 .W325 B58 2007
Historian Blight has uncovered two rare personal accounts of runaway slaves and then done further research into their lives and times. From gripping stories of escape to a “climb to black working-class stability,” this book describes the extraordinary events in the lives of two ordinary men.
Books: Beaver Dam Campus
The coming free : the struggle for African American equality by David Rubel
E185.61 .R9155 2005
Covering all the momentous events that helped push forward America's civil rights policies, this is the first fully illustrated chronicle of the complete history of the African American civil rights struggle.
Historic landmarks of Black America by George Cantor
E185.53.A1 .C36 1991
Describes 300 historical sites including houses, museums, libraries, churches, forts, colleges, and battlefields, that played an important role in African American history
Living our stories, telling our truths : autobiography and the making of the African-American intellectual tradition by V. P. Franklin
E185.96 .F74 1996
In Living Our Stories, Telling Our Truths V. P. Franklin reinterprets the lives and thought of twelve major African American writers and political leaders - including Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Adam Clayton Powell.
On the altar of freedom : a black soldier's Civil War letters from the front by James Henry Gooding
E513.554th .G66 1991
James Henry Gooding was a member of the 54th Massachusetts regiment and his correspondence provides a unique insight into the Civil War.
African American women of the Old West by Tricia Martineau Wagner
E185.925 .W34 2007
The story of ten African American women is reconstructed from historic documents found in
century-old archives. The ten remarkable women in Black Women of the Old West were all born before 1900, some were slaves, some were free, and some lived both ways during their lifetime. Among them were laundresses, freedom advocates, journalists, educators, midwives, business proprietors, religious converts, philanthropists, mail and freight haulers, and civil and social activists.
More Web Links (selected from the Librarians’ Internet Index):
Black Oral History Collection
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/holland/masc/xblackoralhistory.html
Features interviews with "African American pioneers and their descendants throughout Washington [state], Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, from 1972-1974." Topics discussed "include early black settlers, job opportunities, social life and community, living patterns, black churches, and black political involvement from the late 1800s through 1974." Includes sound files and descriptive records. Browsable and searchable. From Washington State University Libraries.
African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection 1818-1907
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html
A collection of over 350 pamphlets presenting "a panoramic and eclectic review of black history and culture, spanning almost one hundred years." Searchable, and browsable by subject and author (including Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett). Also contains a timeline of black history (1852-1925), bibliography, and a virtual 1898 meeting of the National Afro-American Council. From the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/
This site has a collection of "more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves" collected as part of the Federal Writers' Project during the Depression. It was originally published as the seventeen-volume "Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves" (1941). Search by keyword or browse the narratives and photographs. From the American Memory Project, Library of Congress.
Biography.com Celebrates Black History Month
http://www.biography.com/blackhistory/
Several dozen report-length biographies of athletes, educators, entertainers, public officials, religious leaders, scientists, social reformers, and writers and artists. Many include photographs and chronologies of completed works.
Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
http://nmaahc.si.edu/
Website for this Washington, D.C., museum (the building for which has not yet been constructed) that "aspires to tell the story of America's history through an African American lens." Features an interactive diagram of selected people and places of African American history and culture, personal memories, images from exhibitions, classroom materials, family activities, children's literature list, and other material related to black history.
Western States Black Research and Educational Center - Mayme Clayton Library and Museum
http://www.claytonmuseum.org/
The Mayme Clayton Library and Museum is the largest and most academically substantial, independently held collection of rare and out-of-print books, documents, films, music, photographs and memorabilia on African American history and culture in the United States. Ms. Clayton was a librarian who collected items for the museum over a 40-year-period to ensure that "children would know that black people have done great things."
Updated 9/2009.
