Category: African American History

Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Recommended Reading List

True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom Today marks the 36th annual observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. First observed in 1986, Martin Luther King Jr. Day serves as a celebration of the life of Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Well known… Continue Reading Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Recommended Reading List

Happy Rosa Parks Day: A Recommended Reading List

December 1st, 1955, marks the day civil rights activist Rosa Parks rejected a bus driver’s order, in Montgomery, Alabama, to give up her seat in the “colored” section of the bus to a white passenger, after the whites-only section had already been filled. She was then arrested and convicted of violating the laws of segregation. However, Rosa Parks was able… Continue Reading Happy Rosa Parks Day: A Recommended Reading List

New and Recently Released UNC Press Audiobooks

We are pleased to announce the availability of the following UNC Press titles in audiobook format (sample audio excerpts are available via the links below): Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie M. H. Camp, published by Tantor Media “Wonderfully evocative. . . . A provocative book full of astonishing, sometimes unforgettable moments.”—Virginia… Continue Reading New and Recently Released UNC Press Audiobooks

Capitalism and Slavery: The Development Of The Negro Slave Trade

For our last bit of JuneTeenth celebration this month, I decided to pull an excerpt from one of the books featured in our two part commemorative JuneTeenth recommended reading list (Part One, Part Two). This excerpt is from Eric Williams and Colin A. Palmer’s Capitalism and Slavery, Third Edition.  The negro slaves were “the strength and sinews of this western world.”… Continue Reading Capitalism and Slavery: The Development Of The Negro Slave Trade

Juneteenth, Our Newest National Holiday: A Recipe for Celebration

Happy Juneteenth! This recipe from Adrian Miller’s 2014 Beard Foundation Award winning Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time also appears in Southern Holidays: a Savor the South Cookbook by Debbie Moose, whose headnote from that book follows. Adrian Miller’s book Soul Food is a detailed and fascinating exploration of the history and… Continue Reading Juneteenth, Our Newest National Holiday: A Recipe for Celebration

Happy (early) Juneteenth! A Reading List, Part One

Happy early Juneteenth! If you don’t know, June 19th is “the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. Today Juneteenth commemorates African American freedom and emphasizes education and… Continue Reading Happy (early) Juneteenth! A Reading List, Part One

Reckoning with our past means commemorating violent histories

Reblogged with permission from Washington Post; Blog Post by K. Stephen Prince, author of The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching For The New Orleans Riot On a gray afternoon in December, a small group gathered in the Central City neighborhood of New Orleans. They came together to dedicate a historical marker to the events of late July 1900, when a confrontation… Continue Reading Reckoning with our past means commemorating violent histories

Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Author of City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300 Jason Berry is premiering his film City Of A Million Dreams, for which he is co-screenwriter, producer, and director, today at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival. The premiere of Jason Berry’s City of A Million Dreams is virtual, so grab your popcorn and visit this… Continue Reading Jason Berry’s City Of A Million Dreams film premieres at the 2021 Sarasota Film Festival

Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

We are thrilled that today marks the official on sale date for UNC Press’s third book authored by James Beard Award winner Adrian Miller, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue. Black Smoke is the fourth book published in the Ferris & Ferris Imprint for high-profile, general-interest books about the American South. You can preview Black Smoke… Continue Reading Happy Pub Day to Adrian Miller’s Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Reblogged with permission by ANZASA Online; by Kevin Waite, author of West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire I was born and raised in California, but it wasn’t until I moved to Pennsylvania to begin my PhD that I learned about the history of slavery in my native state. The subject never came up when I was a student… Continue Reading West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire

Reflecting on the Past Year Since the Publication of From Here to Equality

Guest post by  William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, whose groundbreaking and critically acclaimed book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century was published one year ago this week. The year since the publication date of our UNC Press book, From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century (FHTE),… Continue Reading Reflecting on the Past Year Since the Publication of From Here to Equality

Swann at 50

Guest blog post by Pamela Grundy, author of Color & Character: West Charlotte High and the American Struggle over Educational Equality, and Tom Hanchett, author of Sorting Out the New South City, Second Edition: Race, Class, and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975 Fifty years ago, on April 20, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in Swann v. Charlotte… Continue Reading Swann at 50

Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Guest post written in conjunction with the start of the Organization of American Historians’s annual conference #OAH21, by David A. Varel, author of The Scholar and the Struggle: Lawrence Reddick’s Crusade for Black History and Black Power Black historian and activist Lawrence Reddick (1910-1995), the subject of my new UNC book, died over a quarter century ago, but his legacy… Continue Reading Lawrence Reddick and Recent Antiracism Initiatives in the American Historical Profession

Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

In response to recent events in Brooklyn Center MN, the following curated reading list provides information regarding ongoing injustices and discriminatory practices perpetuated by a lack of criminal justice reform that’s historically targeted Black Americans. In the aftermath of the police killing of Daunte Wright, here are resources for donating and healing. The Punitive Turn in American Life: How the… Continue Reading Policing and Ongoing Social Injustice Towards Black Lives in America: A Reading List

Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Guest post by Dale W. Tomich, co-author of Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery: A Visual History of the Plantation in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World, on sale April 19, 2021 The terms “plantation” and “plantation landscape” commonly conjure up the image of the Big House of the great planters of the Americas. The Big House is how the plantation was meant… Continue Reading Reconstructing the Landscapes of Slavery

Black and White and the Blues: Who profits from a cultural tradition?

Excerpt from Princeton Alumni Weekly‘s March 2021 issue is reblogged below with permission. By Adam Gussow, author of Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of the Music Speaking very broadly, people who have emotional investments in the blues — people who like, play, think about, talk about, and identify themselves with the blues — have two diametrically… Continue Reading Black and White and the Blues: Who profits from a cultural tradition?

Conventions and Black Print Culture

Closing out our blog posts for Black History Month 2021, the following excerpt by P. Gabrielle Foreman is taken from The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century (available March 2021), edited by P. Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, and Sarah Lynn Patterson The Black press served not only as a conveyer of information but as a convener of audiences and ideas;… Continue Reading Conventions and Black Print Culture

Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: Coming Soon

Preorder any of the following titles and save 40% on all UNC Press books with discount code 01DAH40. Visit the sale page to browse more recommended titles in African American History, or view our full list of books in African American Studies. White Evangelical Racism:The Politics of Morality in Americaby Anthea Butler Available March 2021 | In this clear-eyed, hard-hitting chronicle of American… Continue Reading Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: Coming Soon

Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: New and Noteworthy

Save 40% on all UNC Press books with discount code 01DAH40. Visit the sale page to browse more recommended titles in African American History, or view our full list of books in African American Studies. Chronicling Stankonia: The Rise of the Hip-Hop Southby Regina N. Bradley This vibrant book pulses with the beats of a new American South, probing the ways music,… Continue Reading Five Weekly Reads for Black History Month: New and Noteworthy

The Nation of Islam, Caring for the Black Body, and Vaccine Hesitancy

Guest post (unrolled from a thread that appeared originally on Twitter) by Edward E. Curtis IV, author of Black Muslim Religion in the Nation of Islam, 1960-1975 The history of the Nation of Islam helps to explain why some U.S. African Americans do not want a foreign substance injected in their arms. As COVID Black and others have revealed, the horrible… Continue Reading The Nation of Islam, Caring for the Black Body, and Vaccine Hesitancy