Introduction to Historical Contexts
To understand where we are, we need to understand how we got here. Below are some resources that cover the full range of the African American Experience. Dive into the subtopic pages or link out to the other library guides on African American topics to do your own research.
Resources to Get Started
- Afro-Americana imprints, 1535-1922: from the Library Company of PhiladelphiaSearchable collection of books, pamphlets and broadsides, including many lesser-known imprints, presenting a record of African American history, literature and culture.
The Harvard Guide to African-American History by ISBN: 0674002768Publication Date: 2001-06-25This landmark guide covers research into every aspect of African-American life and work, offering a compendium of information and interpretation about almost 400 years of African-Americans' experiences as an ethnic group and as Americans. The first part of the Guide contains 12 essays on historical research aids, from traditional archival and reference materials to the Internet. The second and largest part presents comprehensive and chronological bibliographies, prepared by John Thornton, Peter H. Wood, Gary B. Nash, Stephanie Shaw, Richard J. M. Blackett, Eric Foner, Leon F. Litwack, Joe W. Trotter, Jeffrey Conrad Stewart, Nancy L. Grant, Darlene Clark Hine, Clayborne Carson, John H. Bracey, Adam Biggs, and Corey Walker. The third part contains listings of resources on the special subjects of women, prepared by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham; geographical areas; and autobiography and biography, prepared by Randall K. Burkett, Leon F. Litwack, and Richard Newman. A companion CD-ROM packaged with the book makes more than 15,000 bibliography entries available for computer searching.
- Slavery, abolition and social justice, 1490-2007 This link opens in a new windowBringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice. In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
- Race Relations in AmericaSourced from the records of the Race Relations Department of the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, this resource provides access to a wealth of documents highlighting different responses to the challenges of overcoming prejudice, segregation and racial tensions. These range from survey material, including interviews and statistics, to educational pamphlets, administrative correspondence, and photographs and speeches from the Annual Race Relations Institutes.
- Historical Foundations of RaceThe term “race,” used infrequently before the 1500s, was used to identify groups of people with a kinship or group connection. The modern-day use of the term “race” is a human invention. The National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian Institute, reviews how the concept of race became woven in the fabric of US history and identity.
- Charlottesville Syllabus: Readings on the History of Hate in AmericaThe history of racism and ethnic hate in America is long and deep. What are the cultural, economic, and political currents that led us here? As Audre Lorde wrote in 1991: “Racism cuts a wide and corrosive swath across each of our lives.” This small selection of articles reminds us of the complexity of this statement. As always, free access to the underlying scholarship cited in the stories is available to everyone.
- The Case for ReparationsTwo hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
Documentaries
- I am not your NegroAn Oscar-nominated documentary narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO explores the continued peril America faces from institutionalized racism.
- UNEARTHING BLACK HISTORY AT THE FREEDOM LOTSRestoring a section of Green-Wood Cemetery, a team of students and historians discover a window onto black life in nineteenth century New York.
History of White Supremacy and Institutionalized Racism
- 158 RESOURCES TO UNDERSTAND RACISM IN AMERICAThese articles, videos, podcasts and websites from the Smithsonian chronicle the history of anti-black violence and inequality in the United States
- Institutionalized Racism: A SyllabusThe United States has seen escalating protests over the past week, following the death of George Floyd while in custody of the Minneapolis police. Educators everywhere are asking how can we help students understand that this was not an isolated, tragic incident perpetrated by a few bad individuals, but part of a broader pattern of institutionalized racism. Institutional racism—a term coined by Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and Charles V. Hamilton in their 1967 book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America—is what connects George Floyd and Breonna Taylor with Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Emmett Till, and the thousands of other people who have been killed because they were black in America.
Beneath the Surface of White Supremacy by ISBN: 9780804789387Publication Date: 2015-05-06Racism has never been simple. It wasn't more obvious in the past, and it isn't less potent now. From the birth of the United States to the contemporary police shooting death of an unarmed Black youth, Beneath the Surface of White Supremacy investigates ingrained practices of racism, as well as unquestioned assumptions in the study of racism, to upend and deepen our understanding.In Moon-Kie Jung's unsettling book, Dred Scott v. Sandford, the notorious 1857 Supreme Court case, casts a shadow over current immigration debates and the "war on terror." The story of a 1924 massacre of Filipino sugar workers in Hawai'i pairs with statistical relentlessness of Black economic suffering to shed light on hidden dimensions of mass ignorance and indifference. The histories of Asians, Blacks, Latina/os, and Natives relate in knotty ways. State violence and colonialism come to the fore in taking measure of the United States, past and present, while the undue importance of assimilation and colorblindness recedes. Ultimately, Jung challenges the dominant racial common sense and develops new concepts and theory for radically rethinking and resisting racisms.
Blood and Politics by ISBN: 9780374109035Publication Date: 2009-05-12More than fifteen years in the making, Blood and Politics is the most comprehensive history to date of the white supremacist movement as it has evolved over the past three-plus decades. Leonard Zeskind draws heavily upon court documents, racist publications, and first-person reports, along with his own personal observations. An internationally recognized expert on the subject who received a MacArthur Fellowship for his work, Zeskind ties together seemingly disparate strands—from neo-Nazi skinheads, to Holocaust deniers, to Christian Identity churches, to David Duke, to the militia and beyond.
- KKK: the fight for white supremacyWith race relations stretched to breaking point in some American cities, the supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan says it's seeing a surge in membership. They claim that white Americans - angry at what they perceive as attacks on their heritage - are joining in large numbers, convinced they must prepare for a race war. With access to the leaders of the Loyal White Knights chapter in North Carolina, this film follows their secretive rituals. The Klan travels to the South Carolina Statehouse in Charleston to protest against the removal of the confederate flag. But when Black Power groups turn out to demonstrate the two opposing visions of America violently come face to face.