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February features Black History
books and links
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Look for these titles in the MORE
catalog
Fiction
Early novels and stories
by James Baldwin
F Bal
Novelist, essayist, and public intellectual, James Baldwin was one of the
most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the post-war era, and
one of the greatest African-American writers of the century. This
book presents the short stories and novels that established Baldwin's
reputation as a writer who fused unblinking realism and rare verbal
eloquence. The wake of the wind
by J. California Cooper
F Coo
Set in the South in the waning years of the Civil War, this is the
dramatic story of a remarkable heroine, Lifee, and her husband, Mor.
When Emancipation finally comes to Texas, they set out in search of hope
and a piece of land they can call their own. Miraculously, they
manage not only to survive, but to succeed. Their crops grow, their
children thrive, they educate themselves and other. However, the
South during Reconstruction does nto take kindly to the achievements of
former slaves, and as lynchings and injustices plague the region, they
must make the anguished decision to leave their land in search of a safer
place. Juneteenth
by Ralph Ellison
F Ell
This novel draws on the rich fullness of America's black cultural
heritage, from the dazzling range of vernacular sources in the novel's
language to the way its structure echoes the call-and-response pattern of
the black church and the riffs and bass lines of jazz. Still a work in
progress at the time of the authors death, John Callahan, with the aid of
Ellison's widow, edited this magnificent novel at the center of Ellison's
forty-year work in progress. If this world were mine
by E. Lynn Harris
F Har
Harris introduces four new characters whose friendships and deep bonds of intimacy
are threatened by conflicts of career and romance. Their
eyes were watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston
F Hur
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person no mean feat for a black
woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to
her roots. Jazz
by Toni Morrison
F Mor
In a dazzling jazz-like improvisation, moving seamlessly in and out of the
past, present and future, a mysterious voice weaves this brilliant
fiction, at the same time showing how the blues are informed by the brutal
exigencies of slavery. Richly combining history, legend, and
reminiscence, this voice captures as never before the ineffable mood, the
complex humanity, of black urban life in the 1920's. By the
light of my father's smile
by Alice Walker
F Wal
A family from the US goes to the remote Sierra in Mexico and there, amid
an endangered band of mixed-race Blacks and Indians called the Mundo, they
begin to encounter that which will change them more than they could ever
dream. Moving back and forth in time, and among unforgettable
characters and their stories, walker crosses conventional borders of all
kinds as she explores the ways in which a woman's denied sexuality leads
to the loss of the much prized and necessary original self and how she
regains that self, even as her family's past of lies and love is
transformed. Native son
by Richard Wright
F Wri
Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It
could have been assault or petty larcency; by chance it was for murder and
rape. The book tells the story of a young black man caught in a
downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of
panic. Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Wright's powerful novel is an unsparing
reflection of the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by
people of inner cities across the county and what it means to be Black in
America.
Non-fiction
The Martin Luther King, Jr. companion
323.092 Kin
This quotation book represents the finest of Reverend
King's words. It is a classic volume compiled from his essays,
lectures, and speeches by this widow, Coretta Scott King. King's
vision of healing and forgiveness is a timeless message that America can
ill afford to ignore. The
autobiography of Malcolm X
921 Mal
If there was one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the
beliefs of African-Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X.
His autobiography is now an established classic of modern America, a book
that expresses like none other the crucial truth about our violent times. Monk
by Laurent de Wilde
921 Mon
A personal, anecdotal biography of one of the greatest, most controversial
pianists/composers in modern music which portrays the particular genius of
Monk's music and captures the alchemical New York jazz scene of the 1940s,
1950s, and 1960s. Laurent writes of Monk's distinctive fingering, of
his producers, engineers and agents, of money and tours, and the
importance of that rhythm section, of saxophones and madness. Coming
of age in Mississippi
by Anne Moody
921 Moo
Written without a trace of sentimentality or apology, this is an
unforgettable personal story. In this now classic autobiography,
Moody details the sights, smells, and suffering of growing up in a racist
society and candidly reveals the soul of the black girl who had the
courage to challenge it. The result is a touchstone work: an accurate,
authoritative portrait of black family life in the rural South and a
moving account of a woman's indomitable heart. Parting
the waters: America in the King years, 1954-63
by Taylor Branch
973 Bra
A vivid tapestry of our nation, torn and finally transformed by a
revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War- the American Civil
Rights Movement. Weary feet,
rested souls: a guided history of the Civil Rights Movement
by Townsend Davis
973.0496 Dav
Both a history of the Civil Rights struggle and an indispensable traveling
companion for the deep South, this guide takes readers to Martin Luther
King Jr.'s childhood neighborhood; along the path of the Freedom Riders;
to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where three Civil Rights workers were
murdered; to the route of the triumphant march from Selma to Montgomery;
and to hundreds of other sites.
Videos
Eyes on the prize
VID Documentary
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Volume 1 - Awakenings (1954-1956)
From grass-roots protests to Supreme Court victories, this volume
captures the courage of Black Americans as they stride toward
freedom. Because of them, the struggle for civil rights would
never be the same.
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Volume 2 - Fighting back (1957-1962)
The confrontation between state and federal governments marked an
escalation in the struggle for civil rights, and there was no turning
back.
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Volume 3 - Ain't scared of your jails
(1960-1961)
America's attention focused on civil rights as never before. The
nation watched as CORE and its director James Farmer organized the
Freedom Riders, blacks and whites riding buses together through the
South to end segregation in interstate travel. Arrests,
firebombing and mob attacks put the commitment of civil rights workers
to an increasingly dangerous test.
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Volume 4 - No easy walk (1961-1963)
We visit the cities where tactics of nonviolent protest met both
success and failure.
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Volume 5 - Mississippi: is this
America? (1962-1964)
Traces the fight for that right, the right to vote, long denied to
many by law custom, intimidation, and violence.
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Volume 6 - Bridge to freedom (1965)
With nationwide support for the movement, the fight for voting rights
finally reached the corridors of power. When President Johnson
presented the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he quotes the anthem of that
the movement made famous: "We shall overcome."
The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry
VID Documentary
When the Civil War began, black men wanted a chance to strike a blow
for the liberation of the African-American race. They were ready to
fight for the abolition of slavery and the extension of full citizenship
rights by the end of the war. Thier desire to participate was
rejected until the first officially sanctioned regiment of northern black
soldiers was formed in Boston. That
rhythem, those blues
(The American Experience series)
VID Documentary
In small towns and cities of the south in the 1940s and
1950s, black rhythm-and-blues singers performed in warehouses, tobacco
barns, movie theaters and halls. This film documents the endless
one-night stands, makeshift housing and inadequate transportation that
were all a step toward the big time at the famed Apollo Theatre on 125th
Street in Harlem. The story of the Apollo reflects the era of
sanctioned American segregation and carries a message about the
relationship between black and white America.
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