Traces African American history from 1513-2008, focusing on defining events, debates, and controversies, covering history, society, politics, and culture, and including eight hundred images.
Profiles the lives of three hundred notable African-American authors, artists, and intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance; and features information on Langston Hughes, Louis Armstrong, the Scottsboro Boys, and others.
A look at the social and political legacy of Eldridge Cleaver, drawing on a 1997 interview with him discussing his life as a civil rights activist along with archival footage, commentary from Cleaver's former wife Kathleen, and audio tapes of a 1975 interview.
Explores the large chasm between the upper and lower classes of black America and why it has developed, reviewing the years that have passed since the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Includes interviews with prominent blacks such as Cornel West, William Julius Wilson, and Maulana Karenga as well as civil rights veterans Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, and Julian Bond.
An anthology of African-American literature, featuring the work of 123 authors born between 1746 and 1969 writing in a variety of genres, and including period introductions, author headnotes, and two compact discs with vocal and instrumental pieces, as well as spoken word performances.
Explores the relation of the black vernacular tradition to the African-American literary tradition, focusing on the two trickster figures of Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey, in whose myths are registered certain principles of both formal language use and its interpretation.
Two African-American Harvard professors reflect on the challenge issued by NAACP co-founder W.E.B DuBois to the formally educated, to help and serve the less fortunate of their race. Includes the complete text of DuBois's essay, The Talented Tenth, with his own critique, and biographical information on the influential leader.
