Black Built

Black Built

Author: Paul A Wellington

Publisher:

Published: 2019-04

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 9781732965102

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Architecture by Black Architects, discussing the history and influence of a wide range of American works in the Black community from the 19th century to present.


How Blacks Built America

How Blacks Built America

Author: Joe R. Feagin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-30

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1134474768

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How Blacks Built America examines the many positive and dramatic contributions made by African Americans to this country over its long history. Almost all public and scholarly discussion of African Americans accenting their distinctive societal position, especially discussion outside black communities, has emphasized either stereotypically negative features or the negative socioeconomic conditions that they have long faced because of systemic racism. In contrast, Feagin reveals that African Americans have long been an extraordinarily important asset for this country. Without their essential contributions, indeed, there probably would not have been a United States. This is an ideal addition to courses race and ethnicity courses.


Black Men Built the Capitol

Black Men Built the Capitol

Author: Jesse Holland

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2007-09-01

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0762751924

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The first book of its kind, with comprehensive up-to-date details Historic sites along the Mall, such as the U.S. Capitol building, the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, are explored from an entirely new perspective in this book, with never-before-told stories and statistics about the role of blacks in their creation. This is an iconoclastic guide to Washington, D.C., in that it shines a light on the African Americans who have not traditionally been properly credited for actually building important landmarks in the city. New research by a top Washington journalist brings this information together in a powerful retelling of an important part of our country's history. In addition the book includes sections devoted to specific monuments such as the African American Civil War Memorial, the real “Uncle Tom's cabin,” the Benjamin Banneker Overlook and Frederick Douglass Museum, the Hall of Fame for Caring Americans, and other existing statues, memorials and monuments. It also details the many other places being planned right now to house, for the first time, rich collections of black American history that have not previously been accessible to the public, such as the soon-to-open Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Monument, as well as others opening over the next decade. This book will be a source of pride for African Americans who live in or come from the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area as well as for the 18 million annual African American visitors to our nation's capital. Jesse J. Holland is a political journalist who lives in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. He is the Congressional legal affairs correspondent for the Associated Press, and his stories frequently appear in the New York Times and other major papers. In 2004, Holland became the first African American elected to Congressional Standing Committee of Correspondents, which represents the entire press corps before the Senate and the House of Representatives. A graduate of the University of Mississippi, he is a frequent lecturer at universities and media talk shows across the country.


The Black Soldiers Who Built the Alaska Highway

The Black Soldiers Who Built the Alaska Highway

Author: John Virtue

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2012-11-16

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 1476600392

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This is the first detailed account of the 5,000 black troops who were reluctantly sent north by the United States Army during World War II to help build the Alaska Highway and install the companion Canol pipeline. Theirs were the first black regiments deployed outside the lower 48 states during the war. The enlisted men, most of them from the South, faced racial discrimination from white officers, were barred from entering any towns for fear they would procreate a "mongrel" race with local women, and endured winter conditions they had never experienced before. Despite this, they won praise for their dedication and their work. Congress in 2005 said that the wartime service of the four regiments covered here contributed to the eventual desegregation of the Armed Forces.


Julius Rosenwald

Julius Rosenwald

Author: Peter M. Ascoli

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2006-05-23

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 0253112044

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"This is the first serious biography of the exuberant man who transformed the Sears, Roebuck company into the country's most important retailer. He was also one of the early 20th century's notable philanthropists.... The richness of primary evidence continually delights." -- Judith Sealander, author of Private Wealth and Public Life "[No] mere philanthropist [but a] subtle, stinging critic of our racial democracy." -- W. E. B. DuBois on Julius Rosenwald In this richly revealing biography of a major, but little-known, American businessman and philanthropist, Peter Ascoli brings to life a portrait of Julius Rosenwald, the man and his work. The son of first-generation German Jewish immigrants, Julius Rosenwald, known to his friends as "JR," apprenticed for his uncles, who were major clothing manufacturers in New York City. It would be as a men's clothing salesperson that JR would make his fateful encounter with Sears, Roebuck and Company, which he eventually fashioned into the greatest mail order firm in the world. He also founded Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. And in the American South Rosenwald helped support the building of the more than 5,300 schools that bore his name. Yet the charitable fund he created during World War I went out of existence in 1948 at his expressed wish. Ascoli provides a fascinating account of Rosenwald's meteoric rise in American business, but he also portrays a man devoted to family and with a desire to help his community that led to a lifelong devotion to philanthropy. He tells about Rosenwald's important philanthropic activities, especially those connected with the Rosenwald schools and Booker T. Washington, and later through the Rosenwald Fund. Ascoli's account of Rosenwald is an inspiring story of hard work and success, and of giving back to the nation in which he prospered.


A House for the Struggle

A House for the Struggle

Author: E. James West

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2022-04-26

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0252053311

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Multiple Award-Winner! Winner of the 2023 Michael Nelson Prize of International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) Recipient of the 2022 Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Book Award Winner of the 2023 American Journalism Historians Association Book of the Year Winner of the 2023 ULCC’s (Union League Club of Chicago) Outstanding Book on the History of Chicago Award Recipient of a 2023 Best of Illinois History Superior Achievement award from the Illinois State Historical Society Winner of the 2023 BAAS Book Prize (British Association for American Studies) Honorable Mention for the 2021-22 RSAP Book Prize (Research Society for American Periodicals) Buildings once symbolized Chicago's place as the business capital of Black America and a thriving hub for Black media. In this groundbreaking work, E. James West examines the city's Black press through its relationship with the built environment. As a house for the struggle, the buildings of publications like Ebony and the Chicago Defender embodied narratives of racial uplift and community resistance. As political hubs, gallery spaces, and public squares, they served as key sites in the ongoing Black quest for self-respect, independence, and civic identity. At the same time, factors ranging from discriminatory business practices to editorial and corporate ideology prescribed their location, use, and appearance, positioning Black press buildings as sites of both Black possibility and racial constraint. Engaging and innovative, A House for the Struggle reconsiders the Black press's place at the crossroads where aspiration collided with life in one of America's most segregated cities.


Between the World and Me

Between the World and Me

Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Publisher: One World

Published: 2015-07-14

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 0679645985

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.


Black Landscapes Matter

Black Landscapes Matter

Author: Walter Hood

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2020-12-09

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0813944872

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The question "Do black landscapes matter?" cuts deep to the core of American history. From the plantations of slavery to contemporary segregated cities, from freedman villages to northern migrations for freedom, the nation’s landscape bears the detritus of diverse origins. Black landscapes matter because they tell the truth. In this vital new collection, acclaimed landscape designer and public artist Walter Hood assembles a group of notable landscape architecture and planning professionals and scholars to probe how race, memory, and meaning intersect in the American landscape. Essayists examine a variety of U.S. places—ranging from New Orleans and Charlotte to Milwaukee and Detroit—exposing racism endemic in the built environment and acknowledging the widespread erasure of black geographies and cultural landscapes. Through a combination of case studies, critiques, and calls to action, contributors reveal the deficient, normative portrayals of landscape that affect communities of color and question how public design and preservation efforts can support people in these places. In a culture in which historical omissions and specious narratives routinely provoke disinvestment in minority communities, creative solutions by designers, planners, artists, and residents are necessary to activate them in novel ways. Black people have built and shaped the American landscape in ways that can never be fully known. Black Landscapes Matter is a timely and necessary reminder that without recognizing and reconciling these histories and spaces, America’s past and future cannot be understood.


The Black History of the White House

The Black History of the White House

Author: Clarence Lusane

Publisher: City Lights Books

Published: 2013-01-23

Total Pages: 662

ISBN-13: 0872866114

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The Black History of the White House presents the untold history, racial politics, and shifting significance of the White House as experienced by African Americans, from the generations of enslaved people who helped to build it or were forced to work there to its first black First Family, the Obamas. Clarence Lusane juxtaposes significant events in White House history with the ongoing struggle for democratic, civil, and human rights by black Americans and demonstrates that only during crises have presidents used their authority to advance racial justice. He describes how in 1901 the building was officially named the “White House” amidst a furious backlash against President Roosevelt for inviting Booker T. Washington to dinner, and how that same year that saw the consolidation of white power with the departure of the last black Congressmember elected after the Civil War. Lusane explores how, from its construction in 1792 to its becoming the home of the first black president, the White House has been a prism through which to view the progress and struggles of black Americans seeking full citizenship and justice. “Clarence Lusane is one of America’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers on issues of race, class and power.”—Manning Marable "Barack Obama may be the first black president in the White House, but he's far from the first black person to work in it. In this fascinating history of all the enslaved people, workers and entertainers who spent time in the president's official residence over the years, Clarence Lusane restores the White House to its true colors."—Barbara Ehrenreich "Reading The Black History of the White House shows us how much we DON'T know about our history, politics, and culture. In a very accessible and polished style, Clarence Lusane takes us inside the key national events of the American past and present. He reveals new dimensions of the black presence in the US from revolutionary days to the Obama campaign. Yes, 'black hands built the White House'—enslaved black hands—but they also built this country's economy, political system, and culture, in ways Lusane shows us in great detail. A particularly important feature of this book its personal storytelling: we see black political history through the experiences and insights of little-known participants in great American events. The detailed lives of Washington's slaves seeking freedom, or the complexities of Duke Ellington's relationships with the Truman and Eisenhower White House, show us American racism, and also black America's fierce hunger for freedom, in brand new and very exciting ways. This book would be a great addition to many courses in history, sociology, or ethnic studies courses. Highly recommended!"—Howard Winant "The White House was built with slave labor and at least six US presidents owned slaves during their time in office. With these facts, Clarence Lusane, a political science professor at American University, opens The Black History of the White House(City Lights), a fascinating story of race relations that plays out both on the domestic front and the international stage. As Lusane writes, 'The Lincoln White House resolved the issue of slavery, but not that of racism.' Along with the political calculations surrounding who gets invited to the White House are matters of musical tastes and opinionated first ladies, ingredients that make for good storytelling."—Boston Globe Dr. Clarence Lusane has published in The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, The Baltimore Sun, Oakland Tribune, Black Scholar, and Race and Class. He often appears on PBS, BET, C-SPAN, and other national media.


Building Houses out of Chicken Legs

Building Houses out of Chicken Legs

Author: Psyche A. Williams-Forson

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2006-12-08

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0807877352

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Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the present. It has provided food and a source of income for their families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. Psyche A. Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird." Exploring material ranging from personal interviews to the comedy of Chris Rock, from commercial advertisements to the art of Kara Walker, and from cookbooks to literature, Williams-Forson considers how black women arrive at degrees of self-definition and self-reliance using certain foods. She demonstrates how they defy conventional representations of blackness and exercise influence through food preparation and distribution. Understanding these complex relationships clarifies how present associations of blacks and chicken are rooted in a past that is fraught with both racism and agency. The traditions and practices of feminism, Williams-Forson argues, are inherent in the foods women prepare and serve.