Major problems in African-American history: documents and essays

From slavery to freedom, 1619-1877: 1. Interpreting African-American history. DOCUMENTS: The Brownies' Book encourages black children to know their history, 1920

Carter G. Woodson on his goals for black history, 1922

Mary McLeod Bethune outlines the objectives of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and history, 1937

John Hope Franklin explains the lonely dilemma of the American Negro Scholar, 1963

Vincent Harding on the differences between negro history and black history, 1971

Lucille Clifton and the nurturing of history, c. 1990

ESSAYS: John Hope Franklin, The history of African-American history

David W. Blight, The burden of African-American history: Memory, justice, and a usable past

Fath David Ruffins, Sites of memory, sites of struggle: The "materials" of history 2. Africans and the slave trade: Causes and consequences. DOCUMENTS: A Portuguese slave trader describes a kidnapping, c. 1440s

Slave raiding on the West African Coast, 1448

A Congolese envoy to Brazil, c. 1643

Willem Bosman, a Dutch trader, describes the details of bargaining for slaves, 1701

William Snelgrave, an English trader, describes the business of slave trading and two slave mutinies, 1734

Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo, describes his capture, 1756 7. An illustration showing "Tight-packing" for the middle passage, c. 1790s

ESSAYS: Walter Rodney, African societies were transformed by the slave trade

John Thornton, African societies voluntarily participated in the slave trade

3. The origins of North American slavery and racism. DOCUMENTS: John Rolfe records the arrival of African slaves to Virginia, August 1619

Anthony Johnson, a Former slave, claims his slave property, 1655

Interracial sexual relations and their consequences: The case of Elizabeth Key, 1655-1656

An act to discriminate between Africans and others in Maryland, 1664

Francis Payne, a Free negro property owner in colonial Virginia, bequeaths his property, 1673

Distinguishing slaves from indentured servants in Virginia, 1705

ESSAYS. Winthrop D. Jordan, "The mutual causation" of racism and slavery

Edmund S. Morgan, The paradox of slavery and Freedom

4. The origins of African America and the continuity of African culture. DOCUMENTS: Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo, discovers the cultural diversity of West Africa, 1789

Six advertisements for Virginia slave runaways, 1736, 1767

Early slave conversion attempts of Francis Le Jau, an Anglican minister, 1706-1717

George Whitefield, a religious revivalist, encourages conversion and education, 1740

Phyllis Wheatley's homage to George Whitefield, 1770

The conversion experience of John Marrant, 1802

Landon Carter, a slavemaster, confronts the problem of slave conversion, 1776

Two letters from Savannah, Georgia on the progress of Baptist Churches, 1792, 1800

A grave decorated in African style, 1944

ESSAYS. Sterling Stuckey, How Africans preserved their culture: culture as spirit

Mechal Sobel, How white and black cultures merged: culture as social relations

5. The development of a slave society in colonial North America. DOCUMENTS: The story of Tom, an African Creole, 1727

Description of a slave rebellion in Stono, South Carolina, 1739

Lord Dunmore, a British general, entices slaves of Colonial rebels to Flee, 1775

Saul, a slave revolutionary veteran, petitions for Freedom, 1792

Free blacks in South Carolina petition for equal rights, 1791

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, a traveler, encounters the continuing horror of slavery in the New Republic, 1782

ESSAYS. Ira Berlin, Historicizing the slave experience

Allan Kulikoff, How Africans became African Americans

6. Subordination and autonomy: The dialectics of master-slave relations. DOCUMENTS: Thomas Cobb, an antebellum scholar, Describes legal basis for slavery, 1858

Thomas Ruffin, a judge, struggles with the illogic of slaves as property and as persons, 1829

South Carolina Governor James Henry Hammond, a slaveowner, instructs his overseer on the ideal Disciplinary regime, c. 1840s

A slave man resists, 1845

A slave woman resists, 1861

The last will and testament of Patty Cooke, a Virginia slave, 1821

Samuel Elliot, an ex-slave, claims property lost in the Civil War, 1873

ESSAYS: Orlando Patterson, The riddle of property rights in human beings

Eugene D. Genovese, The legal basis for mastery

Philip D. Morgan, Slave property as property owners

7. The roots of resistance: Slave cultures and communities. DOCUMENTS: Margaret Garner, a slave mother, kills her child to prevent reenslavement, 1856

Description of two women outlaws, c. 1850s

Description of love and courtship in slavery

Letters showing relations between slave husbands and wives, 1840-1863

Martin Lee and Hawkins Wilson, two ex-slaves, seek to reunite with their children after emancipation, 1866, 1867

Spotswood Rice, an ex-slave soldier, seeks to protect his children, 1864

Three folktales show how to cope with powerlessness, 1860s

Two slave spirituals express values and hopes

ESSAYS: Ira Berlin and Leslie S. Rowland, Slave communities are grounded in family and kinship

Deborah Gray White, gender roles and gender identity in slave communities

Lawrence W. Levine, The slaves' world-view revealed in their stories

8. Free blacks confront the "Slave power": The meaning of freedom in a slave society. DOCUMENTS: Henry Highland Garnet urges slaves to resist, August 1843

Frederick Douglass opposes free black emigration, September 1851

Rosetta Douglass describes her father and mother at home, 1851-1853

Charlotte Forten protests the trial of a fugitive slave, 1854

Frederick Douglass urges resistance to oppression, 1857

Oberlin graduate Rev. Richard Winsor describes the rescue of a fugitive slave, 1858

ESSAYS: Emma Jones Lapansky, The roots of resistance in free black communities

James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Manhood and womanhood in a slave society

9. Civil War and emancipation. DOCUMENTS: Captain C.B. Wilder, a Civil War relief worker, describes flight from slavery, 1863

Corporal Octave Johnson, a Union soldier, describes his escape from slavery during the war, 1864

John C.P. Wederstrandt and I.N. Steele, two slaveholders, lose control of their slave labor, 1862, 1865

Private Hubbard Pryor as a slave and as a Union soldier, c. 1864

Slave fugitives tell their stories to Charlotte Forten, 1863

Charlotte Forten describes the celebration of emancipation in the heart of the Confederacy, January 1, 1863

A freedom song from the Civil War era

ESSAYS: Vincent Harding, Soldiers of God's wrath

Clarence L. Mohr, The slaves strike for freedom

10. The work of reconstruction. DOCUMENTS: African Americans in Richmond, Virginia, petition President Andrew Johnson, 1865

Freedmen of Edisto Island, South Carolina, demand land, 1865

Captain Charles Soule, a Northern army officer, lectures ex-slaves on the responsibilities of freedom, 1865

A share-wages contract, 1865

Charles Raushenberg, a Freedmen's Bureau Agent, reports from Georgia, 1867

Elizabeth Botume, a Northern schoolteacher, remembers a husband and wife reunion, c. 1865

Dave Waldrop, a Florida freeman, seeks to reunite his family, 1867

Harriet Hernandes, a South Carolina woman, testifies against the Ku Klux Klan, 1871

Elected Representatives, 1872

ESSAYS: Herbert C. Gutman, Schools for freedom

Julie Saville, defining free labor Elsa Barkley Brown, The labor of politics.

From freedom to "Freedom now," 1865-1990s.: 3. Renegotiating African-American life in the New South. DOCUMENTS: Black Southerners look Toward Kansas, 1877

David C. Barrow, Jr., a Georgia planter's son, describes the emergence of sharecropping, 1880

Nate Shaw aims to make a living farming, 1907-1908

Black Southerners appeal to President William McKinley for Federal protection, 1898-1900

Representative George White of North Carolina delivers his final speech on the floor of Congress, 1901

Richmond Planet reports a streetcar boycott, 1904-1905

A public library opens in Louisville, Kentucky, 1908

ESSAYS: Elsa Barkley Brown, renegotiating the community

Tera W. Hunter, The politics of labor

4. Rural exodus and the growth of new urban communities. DOCUMENTS: Black population of selected cities, 1910-1930

Migrants' letters, 1917

Helpful hints for migrants to Detroit, 1918

George Edmund Haynes, a black social scientist, surveys Detroit, 1918

A migrant family adjusts to life in Chicago, 1922

Migration blues

ESSAYS: Peter Gottleib, The great migration

Irma Watkins-Owens, Caribbean connections : 5. Defining a race politics. DOCUMENTS: Ida B. Wells urges self-defense, 1892

Booker T. Washington promotes accommodationism, 1895

Resolutions of the National Association of Colored Women, 1904

The Niagara men pldege themselves to persistent agitation, 1905

Maggie Lena Walker talks to black men about racial responsibility, 1906

Promoting black towns, c. 1907

Ten thousand Charlestonians petition for black teachers in black schools, 1919

The messenger urges black and White Workers to organize, 1919

Marcus Garvey assesses the situation for black people, 1922

ESSAYS: Deborah Gray White, race and feminism

Winston James, race consciousness and radicalism

6. The culture Wars. DOCUMENTS: A review of Scott Joplin's opera "Treemonisha," 1911

Blues lyrics of the 1920s

Rev. George W. Harvey, Baptist minister, denounces swinging spirituals, 1939

Alain Locke, philosopher, defines the "New negro," 1925

Langston Hughes, poet and Writer, critiques his critics, 1940

Screening the race, 1925

Zora Neale Hurston, writer and anthropologist, takes her university training home, 1927

A roundtable discussion on African survivals in Gullah Language, 1941

ESSAYS: Tera W. Hunter, The blues aesthetic and black Vernacular dance

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, constructing working-class culture

7. Opportunities lost and found. DOCUMENTS: Black population in selected cities, 1940-1960

Charles Hamilton Houston and John P. Davis critique the lily-white Tennessee Valley Authority, 1934

Protesting lynching: A national crime, 1934

A "black cabinet" assembles, 1938

Louise "Mamma" Harris describes labor organizing in Richmond, Virginia, Tobacco factories, 1940

A marine's letter to A. Philip Randolph about discrimination in the Marine Corps, c. 1943

Breaking the color bar in sports, 1947

ESSAYS: Robin D.G. Kelley, radical organizing during the depression

Gretchen Lemke-santangelo, new lives in the west

8. Origins of the civil rights movement. DOCUMENTS: Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke describe exploitation of black women workers during the depression, 1935

Young radicals propose an economic program for the NAACP, 1935

Charles Hamilton Houston lays out a legal strategy for the NAACP, 1935

Goals of the National Negro Congress, 1935

A call to march on Washington, 1941

James Farmer recounts CORE's early direct action strategy, 1942

Consumers boycott Washington, D.C., Department store, 1945

ESSAYS: Robin D.G. Kelley, theatres of resistance

Robert Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, Labor and civil rights

9. The civil rights movement. DOCUMENTS: Jo Ann Robinson, women's political council president, hints of a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, 1954

Melba Pattillo Beals recalls her first days at Little Rock Central High School, 1957

Fannie Lou Hamer's Initiation into the civil rights movement, 1962

James Bevel, an SCLC organizer, mobilizes Birmingham's Young people, 1963

Martin Luther King, Jr., writes from his Jail cell, 1963

John Lewis, SNCC Chairman, challenges the Federal Government, 1963

Avon W. Rollins, an SNCC Field Secretary, details progress made in Danville, Virginia, 1964

Malcolm X defines revolution, 1963

Civil rights leader Bayard Rustin Is forced out, 1960

ESSAYS: Clayborne Carson, "A leader who stood out in a forest of trees"

Charles M. Payne, cultural traditions and the politicization of communities

Charles M. Payne, challenging the politics of spokesmanship

10. After "Freedom now!" DOCUMENTS: Nina Simone's song "Mississippi goddam," 1964

SNCC denounces the Vietnam War, 1966

An Interview with Black Panther Jimmy Slater

Combahee River Collective statement, 1977

A statistical portrait of black America, 1940-1990s

Miami's concerned black organizations for Justice Issues a Manifesto of "Collective needs," 1980

ESSAYS: George Lipsitz, Civil rights activism and the war on poverty

Suzanne E. Smith, The political culture of Detroit

11. Progress and poverty: African Americans at the dawn of the twenty-first century. DOCUMENTS: Leanita McClain on being black, successful, and middle class, 1980

Jesse Jackson addresses the Democratic National Convention, 1988

The Children's Defense fund assesses the life chances of a black child in America, 2000

The relative economic condition of black Youths, 1973 and 1993

The United States Congress Investigates rap music, 1994

The new face of racism: Racial profiling, 1999

The new face of racism: The ordeal of Haitian Immigrants, 1998

The borders of black America: The new "black" Immigrants, 1999

ESSAYS: Lani Guinier, rethinking constitutional rights

Tricia Rose, Twenty-first century cultural politics

Temma Kaplan, The changing face of the continuing struggle.