social science / ethnic studies / african american studies

"Argues that we live in a country founded on a "value gap"--with white lives valued more than others--that still distorts our politics today"--Provided by publisher.

A collection of writings and speeches by Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who became a leader in America's abolition movement.

Examines the conflicts at the interface of sports, race, and society.

"A collection of stories from early African American history that represent the oddity of success in the face of great adversity. Each of the eight illustrated chapters chronicles an uncelebrated African American hero or event. Joel Christian Gill offers historical and cultural commentary on heroes whose stories are not often found in history books, such as Cathay Williams, the only known female Buffalo Soldier, and Eugene Bullard, a fighter pilot who flew for France during World War I"--Back cover.

A comprehensive guide filled with contemporary facts and figures on African Americans.

Based on a series of interviews, the author relates the slave narrative of Cudjo Lewis.

Presents the argument that the Revolutionary War was more of a counter-revolution, a movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their liberty to enslave others after Great Britain imposed abolition throughout the colonies.

"Groundbreaking look at slaves as commodities through every phase of life, from birth to death and beyond, in early America The Price for Their Pound of Flesh is the first book to explore the economic value of enslaved people through every phase of their lives--including from before birth to after death--in the American domestic slave trades. Covering the full "life cycle" (including preconception, infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, the senior years, and death), historian Daina Berry shows the lengths to which slaveholders would go to maximize profits. She draws from over ten years of research to explore how enslaved people responded to being appraised, bartered, and sold. By illuminating their lives, Berry ensures that the individuals she studies are regarded as people, not merely commodities."--Provided by publisher.

As a member of a Georgia Christian commune, Koinonia, Greg Wittkamper was publicly and devoutly in favor of racial integration and harmony. When Georgia's Americus High School was integrated, he refused to participate in the insults and violence aimed at its black students. He was harassed and bullied and beaten but stood his ground. In the summer after his senior year, as racial strife in Americus reached its peak, Greg left town. Forty-two years later, in the spring of 2006, a dozen former classmates wrote letters to Greg, asking his forgiveness and inviting him to return for a class reunion. Their words opened a vein of painful memory and unresolved emotion. The long-deferred attempt at reconciliation started him on a journey that would prove healing and saddening. The Class of '65 transcends the ugly things that happened decades ago in the Deep South. This book is also the story of four other people--David Morgan, Joseph Logan, Deanie Dudley, and Celia Harvey--who reached out to their former classmate. Why did they change their minds? Why did it still matter to them, decades later? Their tale illustrates our capacity for change and the ways in which America has--and has not--matured in its attitudes about race. At heart, this is a tale about a pariah and the people who eventually realized that they had been a party to injustice.

"An original and consequential argument about race, crime, and the law Today, Americans are debating our criminal justice system with new urgency. Mass incarceration and aggressive police tactics -- and their impact on people of color -- are feeding outrage and a consensus that something must be done. But what if we only know half the story? In Locking Up Our Own, the Yale legal scholar and former public defender James Forman Jr. weighs the tragic role that some African Americans themselves played in escalating the war on crime. As Forman shows, the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office around the country amid a surge in crime. Many came to believe that tough measures -- such as stringent drug and gun laws and "pretext traffic stops" in poor African American neighborhoods -- were needed to secure a stable future for black communities. Some politicians and activists saw criminals as a "cancer" that had to be cut away from the rest of black America. Others supported harsh measures more reluctantly, believing they had no other choice in the face of a public safety emergency. Drawing on his experience as a public defender and focusing on Washington, D.C., Forman writes with compassion for individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas -- from the young men and women he defended to officials struggling to cope with an impossible situation. The result is an original view of our justice system as well as a moving portrait of the human beings caught in its coils. "--.