Category: African American Studies

North Carolina Icons: The Great Dismal Swamp

This week in our North Carolina icons series we’re featuring the Great Dismal Swamp, which stretches from Norfolk, Virginia to Elizabeth City, North Carolina. It’s number 80 on Our State magazine’s 100 North Carolina Icons list, where it’s described: “Birds don’t find the swamp dismal at all. More than 200 species of birds can be spotted there during the year. Grab your binoculars and go.” Continue Reading North Carolina Icons: The Great Dismal Swamp

Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

It was lovely, this old plantation house, perched, as it was, atop a hillside. Striking in its grandeur. Alluring in its light. I could almost believe, staring up at the glowing, Palladian window panes, that the year was 1806, that Cherokees still possessed the lands of northern Georgia, that the wealthy Cherokee family who once dwelled in this home would appear at a doorway in waistcoats and bustles. Continue Reading Excerpt: The House on Diamond Hill, by Tiya Miles

Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

For all the attention to Lincoln’s ideas and motivations, however, there has been very little focus on the delegates’ side of the story. For decades no one even knew who they were, much less what they stood for. Drawing on the work of the historian Benjamin Quarles, many believed that four of the five delegates were uneducated former slaves, hand-picked by Lincoln and his colonization commissioner, James Mitchell, to be pliable and subservient.

In fact, all five of the men who listened to Lincoln’s case for colonization were members of Washington’s free black elite, chosen by a formal meeting of representatives from Washington’s independent black churches. Continue Reading Kate Masur on Lincoln’s emigration proposal and the views of African American delegates

Excerpt: Help Me to Find My People, by Heather Andrea Williams

African Americans now had both more freedom to move about and more reason to believe they could begin to live the lives they had previously only imagined. For many, this meant reuniting with family, so they urgently attempted to get to the places where they thought their loved ones might be. Sometimes they found them there; other times the people were gone. Continue Reading Excerpt: Help Me to Find My People, by Heather Andrea Williams

Video: Manisha Sinha on the Origins of Abolitionism

When we think of the Abolition movement, a common history textbook answer is that the Abolition movement began when William Lloyd Garrison started publishing his Liberator in 1831, but the roots of American abolitionism are fairly long. Continue Reading Video: Manisha Sinha on the Origins of Abolitionism

First African American Marines Honored with Congressional Gold Medal

Today, 70 years after those first African Americans joined the Marines, Montford Point veterans are being formally honored with the Congressional Gold Medal. Continue Reading First African American Marines Honored with Congressional Gold Medal

Excerpt: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement, by Randal Maurice Jelks

Mays’s own life took him from the nadir of Jim Crow in the Deep South, to the long march of civil rights agitation and education, to the culmination of the Black Freedom struggle in the late 1960s. Long before King began his ministry in Montgomery, Mays had advocated that black churches become centers of civil rights activism, and he was delighted when they nurtured a democratic movement that brought down the walls of racial segregation in the United States. Continue Reading Excerpt: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement, by Randal Maurice Jelks

Excerpt: Crossroads at Clarksdale, by Francoise N. Hamlin

As a Delta town, Clarksdale typified many movement sites, yet for many reasons it is unique. Clarksdale’s movement was more homespun than in other Delta towns—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) had its strongest branch there, founded in the early 1950s by local people. Continue Reading Excerpt: Crossroads at Clarksdale, by Francoise N. Hamlin

Interview: Heather Andrea Williams on the search for family lost in slavery

I think the quilt on the cover really captures some of the pain of separation as well as the hope that some enslaved people held on to. There is a little girl’s dress, but no little girl, and the handwriting is traced from a letter sent by an enslaved woman to the family of her former owner asking what had ever become of her little girl. Vilet Lester, the child’s mother, was literate enough to write this letter seeking information about her daughter. She was hopeful that her current owner would be able to purchase the child and restore Lester’s family. One of the sad things about doing this work is that I do not know if Vilet Lester ever received an answer to her letter or whether she ever saw her daughter again. Continue Reading Interview: Heather Andrea Williams on the search for family lost in slavery

Interview: Randal Maurice Jelks on the Legacy of Benjamin Elijah Mays

Today is the publication day for Benjamin Elijah Mays, Schoolmaster of the Movement: A Biography, by Randal Maurice Jelks. The book is available in hardcover and e-book. In this interview, Jelks discusses the ideologies and ambitions of Mays, a leader in the civil rights movement and mentor to Martin Luther King Jr. Q: Benjamin Elijah Mays (1894-1984) is perhaps most… Continue Reading Interview: Randal Maurice Jelks on the Legacy of Benjamin Elijah Mays

90th Anniversary sale now includes biography and American studies books

Our 90th anniversary sale continues with new books added in biography and American studies. Save 50% and get free shipping on orders over $75. Sale continues on select books in Civil War, literature and literary studies, African American history, women’s studies, religious studies, and art, architecture, and craft. Continue Reading 90th Anniversary sale now includes biography and American studies books

Karen L. Cox: Black Domestic in a Can: A South Carolina Ad Agency “Helps” Glory Foods

Who is the company trying to reach with these commercials except, perhaps, all those white women who read ‘The Help’ and are looking to recapture some of that for themselves? It’s certainly an interesting marketing ploy. Perhaps that is the point. Continue Reading Karen L. Cox: Black Domestic in a Can: A South Carolina Ad Agency “Helps” Glory Foods

New E-book Short: Women and the Politics of Sterilization

In this UNC Press e-book short, Johanna Schoen explains the legal construction of North Carolina’s sterilization program, which lasted far longer than similar programs in other states, and demonstrates through the stories of several women how the state was able to deny women who were poor, uneducated, African American, or “promiscuous” reproductive autonomy in multiple ways. Continue Reading New E-book Short: Women and the Politics of Sterilization

Septima Clark Biography Now Available as Enhanced E-Book

The enhanced e-book features nearly 100 primary-source items, including photographs, documents, letters, newspaper clippings, and 60 audio excerpts from oral-history interviews with 15 individuals—including Clark herself—each embedded in the narrative where it will be most meaningful.. Continue Reading Septima Clark Biography Now Available as Enhanced E-Book

Excerpt: The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation, by Glenn David Brasher

Turning to the war, Davis confirmed reports that some slaves were armed and fighting for the South, but he assured his audience that it “was done solely on compulsion.” Having been a slave foreman, he perceptively compared their plight to that of slaves who “were often made to fill the place of whipping-master.” He maintained that the best way to prevent the South from continually taking military advantage of the enslaved community was to free the slaves so they could “go forth conquering.” Continue Reading Excerpt: The Peninsula Campaign & the Necessity of Emancipation, by Glenn David Brasher

Spring sale now includes Civil War & Literary Studies

Our 90th anniversary sale now includes selected titles in Civil War, literary studies, women’s studies, religious studies, African American history, and art/architecture/craft. Continue Reading Spring sale now includes Civil War & Literary Studies