An Autobiography of Black Chicago
An Autobiography of Black Chicago

Author: Dempsey Travis

Publisher: Agate Publishing

Published: 2013-11-19

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1572847077

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Few were more qualified than Dempsey Travis to write the history of African Americans in Chicago, and none would be able to do it with the same command of firsthand sources. This seminal paperback reissue, An Autobiography of Black Chicago, emulates the best works of Studs Terkel — portraying the African American Chicago community through the personal experiences of Dempsey Travis, his family, and his fellow Chicagoans. Through his family's and his own experiences, plus those of the book's numerous well-respected contributors, Travis tells a comprehensive, intimate story of African Americans in Chicago. Starting with John Baptiste Point du Sable, who was the first non–Native American to settle on the mouth of the Chicago River, and ending with Travis's successes providing equal housing opportunities for Chicago African Americans, An Autobiography of Black Chicago acquaints the reader with the city's most prominent African American figures — told through their own words.

The Assassination of Fred Hampton
The Assassination of Fred Hampton

Author: Jeffrey Haas

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2019-11-05

Total Pages: 509

ISBN-13: 1641603224

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Read the story behind the award-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiancÉe. Deborah Johnson described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, "He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looked at Jeff and asked, "What can you do?" The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas's personal account of how he and People's Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton's assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Fifty years later, Haas writes that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. Not only a story of justice delivered, this book spotlights Hampton as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

Sacred Ground
Sacred Ground

Author: Timuel D. Black

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2019-01-15

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780810139244

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Timuel Black is an acclaimed historian, activist, and storyteller. Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black chronicles the life and times of this Chicago legend. Sacred Ground opens in 1919, during the summer of the Chicago race riot, when infant Black and his family arrive in Chicago from Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the first Great Migration. He recounts in vivid detail his childhood and education in the Black Metropolis of Bronzeville and South Side neighborhoods that make up his "sacred ground." Revealing a priceless trove of experiences, memories, ideas, and opinions, Black describes how it felt to belong to this place, even when stationed in Europe during World War II. He relates how African American soldiers experienced challenges and conflicts during the war, illuminating how these struggles foreshadowed the civil rights movement. A labor organizer, educator, and activist, Black captures fascinating anecdotes and vignettes of meeting with famous figures of the times, such as Duke Ellington and Martin Luther King Jr., but also with unheralded people whose lives convey lessons about striving, uplift, and personal integrity. Rounding out this memoir, Black reflects on the legacy of his friend and mentee, Barack Obama, as well as on his public works and enduring relationships with students, community workers, and some very influential figures in Chicago and the world.

Post Black
Post Black

Author: Ytasha L. Womack

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1569765413

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As a young journalist covering black life at large, author Ytasha L. Womack was caught unaware when she found herself straddling black culture's rarely acknowledged generation gaps and cultural divides. Traditional images show blacks unified culturally, politically, and socially, united by race at venues such as churches and community meetings. But in the “post black” era, even though individuals define themselves first as black, they do not necessarily define themselves by tradition as much as by personal interests, points of view, and lifestyle. In Post Black: How a New Generation Is Redefining African American Identity, Womack takes a fresh look at dynamics shaping the lives of contemporary African Americans. Although grateful to generations that have paved the way, many cannot relate to the rhetoric of pundits who speak as ambassadors of black life any more than they see themselves in exaggerated hip-hop images. Combining interviews, opinions of experts, and extensive research, Post Black will open the eyes of some, validate the lives of others, and provide a realistic picture of the expanding community.

Being Somebody and Black Besides
Being Somebody and Black Besides

Author: George B. Nesbitt

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 355

ISBN-13: 022678312X

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"Like many twentieth-century Black families, the Nesbitts achieved an incredible transformation over the course of a single generation: from performing manual labor on the rural farms of the deep south to holding advanced degrees and owning property in the urban midwest, their family's story was lived or dreamed of by many who moved north during the Great Migration. In Being Somebody and Black Besides, George B. Nesbitt recounts the extraordinary struggles he, his parents, and his five siblings faced in their upwardly mobile journey from the Great Migration through the Freedom Struggle. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Nesbitt earned a law degree at the University of Illinois, enduring racist lectures and administrators who sought to penalize him when he advocated for racial equality. After graduating, he served in World War II, facing discrimination and harassment like many Black soldiers. And when the war was over, despite his education he held many jobs, some quite lowly, before he became deputy assistant to the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Kennedy administration. A keen observer and narrator of race, Nesbitt recounts with righteous and justified anger his bitter struggles and incredible triumphs, shared by Black men and women in America. His beautifully written memoir is a rare example of a sustained first-person narrative about black life in this era. While many of his experiences will resonate with today's readers, others will provide a crucial glimpse into a chapter of Black life and its place in the unfinished struggle for racial justice in our country"--

Chicago
Chicago

Author: Dominic A. Pacyga

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-10-15

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 0226644324

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Chicago has been called by many names. Nelson Algren declared it a “City on the Make.” Carl Sandburg dubbed it the “City of Big Shoulders.” Upton Sinclair christened it “The Jungle,” while New Yorkers, naturally, pronounced it “the Second City.” At last there is a book for all of us, whatever we choose to call Chicago. In this magisterial biography, historian Dominic Pacyga traces the storied past of his hometown, from the explorations of Joliet and Marquette in 1673 to the new wave of urban pioneers today. The city’s great industrialists, reformers, and politicians—and, indeed, the many not-so-great and downright notorious—animate this book, from Al Capone and Jane Addams to Mayor Richard J. Daley and President Barack Obama. But what distinguishes this book from the many others on the subject is its author’s uncommon ability to illuminate the lives of Chicago’s ordinary people. Raised on the city’s South Side and employed for a time in the stockyards, Pacyga gives voice to the city’s steelyard workers and kill floor operators, and maps the neighborhoods distinguished not by Louis Sullivan masterworks, but by bungalows and corner taverns. Filled with the city’s one-of-a-kind characters and all of its defining moments, Chicago: A Biography is as big and boisterous as its namesake—and as ambitious as the men and women who built it.

Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism

Author: Ytasha L. Womack

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2013-10-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1613747993

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2014 Locus Awards Finalist, Nonfiction Category In this hip, accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism, author Ytasha Womack introduces readers to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works, the innovators from the past, and the wide range of subjects they explore. From the sci-fi literature of Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, and N. K. Jemisin to the musical cosmos of Sun Ra, George Clinton, and the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, to the visual and multimedia artists inspired by African Dogon myths and Egyptian deities, the book's topics range from the "alien" experience of blacks in America to the "wake up" cry that peppers sci-fi literature, sermons, and activism. With a twofold aim to entertain and enlighten, Afrofuturists strive to break down racial, ethnic, and social limitations to empower and free individuals to be themselves.

Crusade for Justice
Crusade for Justice

Author: Ida B. Wells

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2020-04-17

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 022669156X

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The NAACP co-founder, civil rights activist, educator, and journalist recounts her public and private life in this classic memoir. Born to enslaved parents, Ida B. Wells was a pioneer of investigative journalism, a crusader against lynching, and a tireless advocate for suffrage, both for women and for African Americans. She co-founded the NAACP, started the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, and was a leader in the early civil rights movement, working alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, Madam C. J. Walker, Mary Church Terrell, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony. This engaging memoir, originally published 1970, relates Wells’s private life as a mother as well as her public activities as a teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight for equality and justice. This updated edition includes a new foreword by Eve L. Ewing, new images, and a new afterword by Ida B. Wells’s great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster. “No student of black history should overlook Crusade for Justice.” —William M. Tuttle, Jr., Journal of American History

An Autobiography of Black Chicago
An Autobiography of Black Chicago

Author: Dempsey Jerome Travis

Publisher: Urban Research Press

Published: 1981

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9780941484015

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Few were more qualified than Dempsey Travis to write the history of African Americans in Chicago, and none would be able to do it with the same command of firsthand sources. This seminal paperback reissue of Travis's best-known work, An Autobiography of Black Chicago, depicts Chicago's African-American community through the personal experiences of Dempsey Travis, his family, and his circle. Starting with John Baptiste Point du Sable, who was the first non-Native American to settle on the mouth of the Chicago River, and ending with Travis's own successes leading the city's NAACP chapter, organizing Martin Luther King's first march in the city, and providing equal housing opportunities for black Chicagoans, An Autobiography of Black Chicago is a comprehensive yet intimate history of African Americans in 20th-century Chicago.

Soledad Brother
Soledad Brother

Author: George Jackson

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 1994-09

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1613742894

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A collection of Jackson's letters from prison, "Soledad Brother" is an outspoken condemnation of the racism of white America and a powerful appraisal of the prison system that failed to break his spirit but eventually took his life. Jackson's letters make palpable the intense feelings of anger and rebellion that filled black men in America's prisons in the 1960s. But even removed from the social and political firestorms of the 1960s, Jackson's story still resonates for its portrait of a man taking a stand even while locked down.