Testify: Americana from Slavery to Today

The image -- Creativity and the era of slavery -- The nineteenth-century professional vanguard -- The Harlem Renaissance the the new negro -- The new negro and the New Deal -- Civil rights and Black power -- Black feminist art -- Abstract explorations -- Conceptualism : art as idea -- Vernacular artists : against the odds -- Postmodern pluralism -- "Post-black" art and the new millennium.

Discusses African American folk art, decorative art, photography, and fine arts

Snapshots -- He reminded me -- Forward from the spring porch -- Canton -- Central Catholic High School -- Notre Dame -- Siblings and cousins -- Graduate school -- Mankato -- Diane -- He changed the game -- Star -- Runner : the dog man of Kenwood -- No freedom, no football -- Bud -- Chicago -- In pursuit of Perry Mason -- The Page Education Foundation -- Hail and farewell -- Popsy -- The court -- Sure, I know Alan Page -- All rise.

Today is a very exciting day at Market Elementary School. Minnesota Supreme Court Justice and NFL Hall of Famer Alan Page is visiting. The teachers and students have been busy planning for weeks. All the students are prepared to use their best manners. But one little boy, who has a knack for asking inappropriate questions at inappropriate times, just can't hold onto his question any longer. When he finally shouts, "What happened to your pinky?" everyone groans and rolls their eyes. But not Justice Page, who surprises everyone with a smile

Activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation

A firsthand exploration of the cost of boarding the bus of change to move America forward. At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans. This purposeful mix of black and white, male and female activists set out to discover whether America would abide by a Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in bus depots, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms nationwide. They found the answer to be No. Southern states would continue to disregard federal law and use violence to enforce racial segregation. This is a front-row view of the struggle to belong in America, as the Freedom Riders go into history to help defeat segregation's violent grip on African American lives. It is also a challenge from a teenager of a previous era to the young people of today: become agents of transformation. Stand firm. Create a more just and moral country where students have a voice, youth can make a difference, and everyone belongs

A biography by two Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy--from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, healthcare, criminal justice, and policing--telling the story of how one man's tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country's broken systems of policing. Behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable. This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston's Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life. Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa bring to light the determination Floyd carried as he faced the relentless struggle to survive as a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the larger context of America's deeply troubled history of institutional racism, this book examines the Floyd family's roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the overpolicing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence--putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Samuels and Olorunnipa offer a moving exploration of George Floyd's America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world

The life and work of Nellie Francis, an African American suffragist and activist devoted to equality and freedom in Minnesota and on a national scale

An exploration of how the power of visual media over the last few years has shifted the narrative on race and reignited the push towards justice by Marc Lamont Hill and Todd Brewster. They weave some of the most pivotal recent moments in the country's racial divide--the killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and the harassment of Christian Cooper--into their historical context. They reveal the common thread between these harrowing incidents: video recordings and the immediacy of technology has irrevocably changed our conversations about race and in many instances tipped the levers of power in favor of the historically disadvantaged. This book asks why, after so much video confirmation of police violence on people of color, it took the footage of George Floyd to trigger an overwhelming response of sympathy and outrage? It explores what connects our moment to the history of race in America but also what makes today different from the civil rights movements of the past and what it will ultimately take to push social justice forward

In telling the stories of people whose lives and deaths pushed forward the movement for justice in the twenty-first century, Jones explains how each can lead to concrete and actionable strategies to address crimes committed by our "justice" system. Together, these ten cases form an actionable plan that is necessary to repair our racist past, change the racist present, and bring justice to the future

According to conventional wisdom, American women's campaign for the vote began with the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The movement was led by figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. But this women's movement was an overwhelmingly white one, and it secured the constitutional right to vote for white women, not for all women. Martha Jones offers a sweeping history of African American women's political lives in America, recounting how they fought for, won, and used the right to the ballot and how they fought against both racism and sexism. From 1830s Boston to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and beyond to Shirley Chisholm, Stacey Abrams, and Kamala Harris, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women who, although in many cases suffragists, were never single-issue activists. She recounts the lives of Maria Stewart, the first American woman to speak about politics before a mixed audience of men and women; African Methodist Episcopal preacher Jarena Lee; Reconstruction-era advocate for female suffrage Frances Ellen Watkins; Harper Boston abolitionist, religious leader, and women's club organizer; Eliza Ann Gardner, and other hidden figures who were pioneers for both gender and racial equality. Revealing the ways black women remained independent in their ideas and their organization, Jones shows how black women were again and again the American vanguard of women's rights, setting the pace in the quest for justice and collective liberation. In the twenty-first century, black women's power at the polls and in politics is evident. Vanguard reveals that this power is not at all new, but is instead the culmination of two centuries of dramatic struggle