Black Lives Matter Library Guide: Historical Context

David Walker's Appeal is an uncompromising African-center discourse that attacks white injustice and advocates Black self-reliance. Its publication in 1830 intensified the debate and struggle against slavery. More than a petition against slavery, the Appeal is a foundational document from which many contemporary themes in Black political philosophy have evolved. Walker asserted the right of Black people to defend themselves against a common enemy by any means necessary. His clear presentation of the problems confronting people of African descent is prophetic, and it assures the relevance of the Appeal to contemporary readers.

“Maria Stewart (1803-1879), was a free Black from Hartford, Connecticut, may have been the first African American woman to speak in public about women’s rights.” Words of Fire. This present volume gathers those works of Maria Stewart which most emphatically reflect her social and political concerns. The texts are those published in the original early 19th century editions, followed by the new material she gathered and composed for the 1879 volume. In gathering and introducing Stewart's works, Marilyn Richardson (editor) provides an opportunity for readers to study the thoughts and words of this influential early Black female activist, a forerunner to Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth and the first Black American to lecture in defense of women's rights, placing her in the context of the swirling abolitionist movement.

"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line." Thus speaks W.E.B. Du Bois in The Souls Of Black Folk, one of the most prophetic and influential works in American literature. In this eloquent collection of essays, first published in 1903, Du Bois dares as no one has before to describe the magnitude of American racism and demand an end to it. He draws on his own life for illustration, from his early experiences teaching in the hills of Tennessee to the death of his infant son and his historic break with the conciliatory position of Booker T. Washington. Far ahead of its time, The Souls Of Black Folk both anticipated and inspired much of the black consciousness and activism of the 1960's and is a classic in the literature of civil rights. The elegance of DuBois's prose and the passion of his message are as crucial today as they were upon the book's first publication.

Written without a trace of sentimentality or apology, this is an unforgettable personal story -- the truth as a remarkable young woman named Anne Moody lived it. To read her book is to know what it is to have grown up black in Mississippi in the forties and fifties -- and to have survived with pride and courage intact. In this now classic autobiography, she details the sights, smells, and suffering of growing up in a racist society and candidly reveals the soul of a black girl who had the courage to challenge it. The result is a touchstone work: an accurate, authoritative portrait of black family life in the rural South and a moving account of a woman's indomitable heart.

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both Black and White, to attack the terrible legacy of racism.

Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of Black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein.

Originally published in 1971, this award-winning book is now a classic in political non-fiction, used on scores of college & university campuses in such diverse areas as political science, economics, education, history, psychology & even in literature. Unprecedented documentation includes the erosion of basic human rights in a socio-economically ailing society & highly-placed attempts to liquidate an historical victim--the African-American. This book is a work of rare courage & intellectual discipline by a seasoned journalist.