Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) is holiday commemorating the effective ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, over two years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and months after the end of the Civil War, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.
Juneteenth is a celebration of hope and the enduring spirit of freedom.Checkout these titles about the history of slavery in the United States and other titles by African American authors that continue to shape our culture, celebrate liberation, and acknowledge the ongoing work towards freedom and equality.
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Watermelon and Red Birds
By Taylor, Nicole
The first cookbook to celebrate and investigate Juneteenth, from critically acclaimed food writer Nicole Taylor who draws on her decade of experiences observing the holiday.Nearly two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Union troops spread the world of liberation to African Americans. And so, on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, festivities sprung up with song, dance, and most importantly, food. Having been officially recognized and a national holiday, eaters are eager to raise glasses and break bread to honor America's forgotten backbone. Watermelon and Red Birds contains 75 delicious dishes that are simple, victory garden-driven, and approachable. Nicole Taylor provides a new technique to dining at home with all the basics for hosting a bounteous dinner party, all-day brunch, brawny BBQ, clever picnic, and parade-themed kickback, along with thoughtful, moving essays about the meaning of Juneteenth.
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9781982176211
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Hardcover
On Juneteenth
By Gordon-reed, Annette
The mesmerizing story of Juneteenth's integral importance to American history -- told by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Texas native.Interweaving American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed, the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s, recounts the origins of Juneteenth and explores the legacies of the holiday that remain with us.From the earliest presence of black people in Texas -- in the 1500s, well before enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown -- to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger announced the end of slavery, Gordon-Reed's insightful and inspiring essays present the saga of a "frontier" peopled by Native Americans, Anglos, Tejanos, and Blacks that became a slaveholder's republic.
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9781631498831
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Hardcover
Envisioning Emancipation
By Willis, Deborah
The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. As we approach its 150th anniversary, what do we really know about those who experienced slavery? In their pioneering book, Envisioning Emancipation, renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis and historian of slavery Barbara Krauthamer have amassed 150 photographs - some never before published - from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration. Filled with powerful images of lives too often ignored or erased from historical records, Envisioning Emancipation will be a keepsake for many years to come.
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9781439909850
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Print book
Race And Liberty in the New Nation
By Wolf, Eva Sheppard
By examining how ordinary Virginia citizens grappled with the vexing problem of slavery in a society dedicated to universal liberty, Eva Sheppard Wolf broadens our understanding of such important concepts as freedom, slavery, emancipation, and race in the early years of the Americ
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9780807131947
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Stony the Road
By Jr., Henry Louis Gates
A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked "a new birth of freedom" in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the "nadir" of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance. Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a "New Negro" to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age.The story Gates tells begins with great hope, with the Emancipation Proclamation, Union victory, and the liberation of nearly 4 million enslaved African-Americans. Until 1877, the federal government, goaded by the activism of Frederick Douglass and many others, tried at various turns to sustain their new rights. But the terror unleashed by white paramilitary groups in the former Confederacy, combined with deteriorating economic conditions and a loss of Northern will, restored "home rule" to the South. The retreat from Reconstruction was followed by one of the most violent periods in our history, with thousands of black people murdered or lynched and many more afflicted by the degrading impositions of Jim Crow segregation. An essential tour through one of America's fundamental historical tragedies, Stony the Road is also a story of heroic resistance, as figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells fought to create a counter-narrative, and culture, inside the lion's mouth. As sobering as this tale is, it also has within it the inspiration that comes with encountering the hopes our ancestors advanced against the longest odds.
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9780525559535
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Hardcover
Caste
By Wilkerson, Isabel
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. "As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not." In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people - including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others - she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
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9780593230251
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Hardcover
Roots
By Perseus,
Roots is a groundbreaking story of history and family that spanned continents and touched generations. One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots galvanized the nation and created an extraordinary political, racial, social, and cultural dialogue that hadnt been seen since the publication of Uncle Toms Cabin. The book sold over one million copies in the first year, and the miniseries was watched by an astonishing 130 million people. It also won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Roots opened up the minds of Americans of all colors and faiths to one of the darkest and most painful parts of Americas past, and we continue to feel its reverberations today.
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9781593154493
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Paperback
Who Freed the Slaves?
By Richards, Leonard L.
In the popular imagination, slavery in the United States ended with Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation may have been limitedfreeing only slaves within Confederate states who were able to make their way to Union linesbut it is nonetheless generally seen as the key moment, with Lincolns leadership setting into motion a train of inevitable events that culminated in the passage of an outright ban the Thirteenth Amendment. The real story, however, is much more complicatedand dramaticthan that. With Who Freed the Slaves, distinguished historian Leonard L. Richards tells the little-known story of the battle over the Thirteenth Amendment, and of James Ashley, the unsung Ohio congressman who proposed the amendment and steered it to passage.
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9780226178202
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Hardcover
Freedom National
By Oakes, James
A powerful history of emancipation that reshapes our understanding of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the end of American slavery.Freedom National is a groundbreaking history of emancipation that joins the political initiatives of Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress with the courageous actions of Union soldiers and runaway slaves in the South. It shatters the widespread conviction that the Civil War was first and foremost a war to restore the Union and only gradually, when it became a military necessity, a war to end slavery. These two aimsLiberty and Union, one and inseparablewere intertwined in Republican policy from the very start of the war. By summer 1861 the federal government invoked military authority to begin freeing slaves, immediately and without slaveholder compensation, as they fled to Union lines in the disloyal South.
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9780393065312
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Hardcover
The Thin Light of Freedom
By Ayers, Edward L
Amid the devastation of war rise the first stirrings of freedom in this absorbing, ground-level narrative by an acclaimed historian.Virginia's Great Valley, prosperous in peace with a rich soil and an enslaved workforce, invited destruction in war. Voracious Union and Confederate armies ground up the valley, consuming crops, livestock, fences, and human life. Pitched battles at Gettysburg, Lynchburg, and Cedar Creek punctuated a cycle of vicious attacks and reprisals in which armies burned whole towns for retribution.North of the Mason-Dixon line, in the Pennsylvania portion of the valley, free black families sent husbands and sons to fight with the U.S. Colored Troops. In letters home, even as Lincoln commemorated the dead at Gettysburg, they spoke movingly of a war for emancipation. As defeat and the end of slavery descended on Virginia, with the political drama of Reconstruction unfolding in Washington, the crowded classrooms of the Freedmen's Bureau schools spoke of a new society struggling to emerge. Here is history at its best: powerful, insightful, grounded in human detail. 30 illustrations; 10 maps
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9780393292633
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Hardcover
Four Hundred Souls
By Kendi, Ibram X.
The story begins in 1619 - a year before the Mayflower - when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span.
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9780593134047
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Hardcover
Sweet Taste of Liberty
By Mcdaniel, W. Caleb
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice--and reparations Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912. McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.
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9780190846992
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Hardcover
Black Pain
By Williams, Terrie
Terrie Williams knows that Black people are hurting. She knows because she's one of them. Terrie had made it: she had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For thirty years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own. Terrie finally collapsed, staying in bed for days. She had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out. She had hit rock bottom and she needed and got help. She learned her problem had a name -- depression -- and that many suffered from it, limping through their days, hiding their hurt. As she healed, her mission became clear: break the silence of this crippling taboo and help those who suffer.
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9780743298827
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Book
River of Blood
By Cahan, Richard
In the late 1930s, the federal government embarked on an unusual project. As a part of the Works Progress Administration's efforts to give jobs to unemployed Americans, government workers tracked down 3,000 men and women who had been enslaved before and during the Civil War. The workers asked them probing questions about slave life. What did they think about their slaveholders? What songs did they sing? What games did they play? Did they always think about escaping? The result was a remarkable compilation of interviews known as the Slave Narratives. This book highlights those narratives -- condensing tens of thousands of pages into short excerpts from about 100 former slaves and pairs their accounts with their photographs, taken by the workers sent to record their stories.
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9780991541850
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Hardcover
The Black Book
By Harris, Middleton A.
A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s with the original cover restored.. "I am so pleased the book is alive again. I still think there is no other work that tells and visualizes a story of such misery with seriousness, humor, grace and triumph." - Toni Morrison. Seventeenth-century sketches of Africans as they appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled "A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.". In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly five hundred others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America - The Black Book. Now in a newly restored hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith joined Harris and Morrison (then a Random House editor, ultimately a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Nobel Laureate) to spend months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials - transcripts from fugitive slaves trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and celebrated abolitionists, as well as chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century, and vibrant posters from "Black Hollywood" films of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, it was an article she found while researching this project that provided the inspiration for Morrisons masterpiece, Beloved.. A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented and featuring a foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.
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9781400068487
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Hardcover
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Juneteenth
By Ellison, Ralph
NATIONAL BESTSELLER"[A]n extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall."--NewsdayFrom Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. "Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself.
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9780375707544
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Paperback
The Underground Railroad
By Whitehead, Colson
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned - Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey - hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
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9780385542364
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Paperback
Homegoing
By Gyasi, Yaa
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book PrizeA New York Times 2016 Notable BookOne of Oprah's 10 Favorite Books of 2016NPR's Debut Novel of the YearOne of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016, Winner of 2017 PEN Hemingway award for debut fiction. "Homegoing is an inspiration." - Ta-Nehisi Coates The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day. Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
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9781101947135
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Hardcover
The Water Dancer
By Coates, Ta-nehisi
Number one New York Times best sellerOprahs Book Club PickFrom the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom."This potent book about Americas most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist." (San Francisco Chronicle) In development as a major motion pictureAdapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfreys Harpo Films Nominated for the NAACP Image Award Named One of Pastes Best Novels of the Decade Named One of the Best Books of the Year by:Time The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Vanity Fair Esquire Good Housekeeping Paste Town & Country The New York Public Library The Dallas Morning News Kirkus Reviews Library Journal "Nearly every paragraph is laced through with dense, gorgeously evocative descriptions of a vanished world and steeped in its own vivid vocabulary." (Entertainment Weekly) Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home hes ever known.So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginias proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as hes enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hirams resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children - the violent and capricious separation of families - and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of todays most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.Praise for The Water Dancer"Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations - and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer...is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance.... Whats most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal.... Timeless and instantly canon-worthy." (Rolling Stone)
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9780399590597
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Audiobook
Conjure Women
By Atakora, Afia
A dazzling debut novel that sweeps across eras and generations to tell the story of a mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing--and the conjuring of curses.The intimate bonds and transgressions among people and across racial divides, during both slaverytime and freedomtime, are at the heart of this mesmerizing and surprising first novel. Like her mother, Rue is an all-knowing midwife, healer, and conjurer of curses on the plantation of Marse Charles. Moving back and forth in time between the years before and after the Civil War, Conjure Women tells the story of Rue, the families she cares for, and the mysteries and secrets she knows about the plantation owner's daughter, Varina. Afia Atakora is a brilliant young writer who creates unforgettable characters, and an enthralling story written in unique and beautiful prose.
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9780525511489
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Hardcover
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Upon the original publication of Beloved, John Leonard wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "I can't imagine American literature without it." Nearly two decades later, The New York Times chose Beloved as the best American novel of the previous fifty years.Toni Morrison's magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning work - first published in 1987 - brought the wrenching experience of slavery into the literature of our time, enlarging our comprehension of America's original sin. Set in post-Civil War Ohio, it is the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has withstood savagery and not gone mad. Sethe, who now lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing apparition who calls herself Beloved.
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9780525659273
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Hardcover
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She Persisted
By Moses, Shelia P.
Inspired by the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger, a chapter book series about women who spoke up and rose up against the odds - including Opal Lee!. Opal Lee grew up as a Black girl in Texas at a time when Black and white people were kept separate and Black people had fewer opportunities than white people did. She knew that this wasn't right, and she grew up to be a teacher and a community leader, determined to help create a better future for all people. A big part of her work and life was making Juneteenth a national holiday to mark the end of enslavement for Black Americans. She loved this day as both a celebration and as a way of teaching about the past. Opal's work and dedication has helped millions of people learn about important parts of American history.
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9780593623503
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Hardcover
What is Juneteenth?
By Kirsti, Jewel,
On June 19, 1865, a group of enslaved men, women, and children in Texas gathered around a Union soldier and listened as he read the most remarkable words they would ever hear. They were no longer enslaved: they were free. The inhumane practice of forcedlabor with no pay was now illegal in all of the United States. This news was cause for celebration, so the group of people jumped in excitement, danced, and wept tears of joy. They did not know it at the time, but their joyous celebration of freedom would become a holiday--Juneteenth--that is observed each year by more and more Americans.
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9781518255571
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Book
Free at Last
By Rolle, Sojourner Kincaid
This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today.After 300 years of forced bondage;hands bound, descendants of Africapicked up their souls - all that they owned - leaving shackles where they fell on the ground,headed for the nearest resting place to be found. Deeply emotional, evocative free verse by poet and activist Sojourner Kincaid Rolle traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas to contemporary observances all over the United States. This is an ode to the strength of Black Americans and a call to remember and honor a holiday whose importance reverberates far beyond the borders of Texas.
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9781454943747
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Hardcover
The Real History of Juneteenth )
By Smith, Elliott
Juneteenth is the celebration of the day enslaved people in Texas were told they were freed -- two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Explore Juneteenth's little-told history, from the first Jubilee to the making of a national holiday.Have you ever considered what's missing from history books? In Left Out of History, explore the misunderstood and underexamined past in this engaging series. Compelling photographs and primary sources help bring previously buried history to light. Read Woke™ Books are created in partnership with Cicely Lewis, the Read Woke librarian. Inspired by a belief that knowledge is power, Read Woke Books seek to amplify the voices of people of the global majority (people who are of African, Arab, Asian, and Latin American descent and identify as not white) , provide information about groups that have been disenfranchised, share perspectives of people who have been underrepresented or oppressed, challenge social norms and disrupt the status quo, and encourage readers to take action in their community.
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9781728475837
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Library Binding
The Story of Juneteenth
By Williamson, Dorena
Introduce little learners to the Juneteenth holiday with this 250-word board book about its origins and traditions.What are the origins of America's newest national holiday? With simple, age-appropriate language and colorful illustrations, this little board book introduces children to the events of June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the people of Texas that all enslaved people were declared free and the Civil War had ended. The book also connects those events to today's celebrations. Thoroughly researched and historically accurate, The Story of Juneteenth distills a pivotal moment in U.S. history and creates an opportunity for further conversation between parent or caregiver and child.
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9781546002161
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Book
Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free
By Duncan, Alice Faye
The true story of Black activist Opal Lee and her vision of Juneteenth as a holiday for everyone celebrates Black joy and inspires children to see their dreams blossom. Growing up in Texas, Opal knew the history of Juneteenth, but she soon discovered that many Americans had never heard of the holiday that represents the nation's creed of "freedom for all."Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic--a drumming, dancing, delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak's stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865--over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn't always see freedom in her Texas town. Then one Juneteenth day when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home.
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9781400231256
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Hardcover
Summer Crafts Across Cultures
By Borgert-spaniol, Megan
Summer is a season of celebration! Join the fun with thirteen festive crafts that celebrate holidays from around the world. Create a hibiscus straw to commemorate Juneteenth. Braid puzzle piece friendship bracelets to mark the International Day of Friendship. It's always the season for crafting!
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9781666334531
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Book
The History of Juneteenth
By Norwood, Arlisha
An introduction to the history of Juneteenth for kids ages 6 to 9 On June 19, 1865, a Union soldier traveled to Texas to tell the enslaved people who lived there that they were free - that slavery was now illegal in every state. The people danced and sang in celebration of their freedom. Today, we pay tribute to this historical day with a special holiday on June 19 called Juneteenth. This colorfully illustrated story takes kids on an exciting journey through all the events that led up to the first Juneteenth, the day itself, and the impact it had on the future of the United States. What sets this book apart from other Juneteenth books for kids: A thorough history - Kids will learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Juneteenth, and take a quick quiz to test their knowledge.
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9781685394417
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Paperback
The Juneteenth Story
By Agostini, Alliah L.
With colorful illustrations and a timeline, this introductory history of Juneteenth for kids details the evolution of the holiday commemorating the date the last enslaved people learned of their freedom.On June 19, 1865 - more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - enslaved Texans finally learned they were free. That day became a day of remembrance and celebration that changed and grew from year to year.Learn about the events that led to emancipation and why it took so long for the enslaved people in Texas to hear the news. The first Juneteenth began as "Jubilee Day," where families celebrated and learned of their new rights as citizens. As Black Texans moved to other parts of the country, they brought their traditions along with them, and Juneteenth continued to grow and develop.
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9780760375143
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Hardcover
Free at Last!
By Rappaport, Doreen
True stories and traditional songs shed light on a lesser known era in African-American history — the crucial decades between Emancipation and the start of the Civil Rights movement.
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9780763631475
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Book
Emancipation Proclamation
By Bolden, Tonya
Published on the anniversary of when President Abraham Lincoln's order went into effect, this book offers readers a unique look at the events that led to the Emancipation Proclamation. Filled with little-known facts and fascinating details, it includes excerpts from historical sources, archival images, and new research that debunks myths about the Emancipation Proclamation and its causes. Complete with a timeline, glossary, and bibliography, Emancipation Proclamation is an engrossing new historical resource from award-winning children's book author Tonya Bolden.Praise for Emancipation Proclamation:FOUR STARRED REVIEWS "A convincing, handsomely produced argument..." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Bolden makes excellent use of primary sources; the pages are filled with archival photos, engravings, letters, posters, maps, newspaper articles, and other period documents.
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9781419703904
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Hardcover
The Story of Juneteenth
By Otfinoski, Steven
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War have brought an official end to slavery, yet some Southern slave owners are refusing to comply. The road to freedom is still long and hard for many African-Americans, but youre not giving up. Will you Overcome obstacles as you make your way north from Texas, looking to begin a new life of freedom? Seek out your family, from whom you were separated as a child, after emancipation? Fight back when you take work as an apprentice but find that youre still treated as a slave? When YOU CHOOSE, history gets real.,
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9781491418024
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Print book
________ J U V E N I L E F I C T I O N ________
Let's Celebrate Juneteenth – An Inclusive Holiday Board Book for Babies and Toddlers
By Mudpuppy,
Introduce children to the history of Juneteenth with the Let's Celebrate Juneteenth Board Book from Mudpuppy. Featuring rhyming text and colorful, bold artwork, this board book is a beautiful celebration of this important holiday. A wonderful addition to your child's bookshelf!. * 26 pages * Trim: 7 x 7", 17.78 x 17.78 * All Mudpuppy products adhere to CPSIA, ASTM, and CE Safety Regulations. * Made responsibly from FSC-certified material. Printed with nontoxic inks.
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9780735377530
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Board book
Jayylen's Juneteenth Surprise
By Lavette, Lavaille
Created in partnership with Ebony Jr., this inspiring Little Golden Book tells the story of one young boy's first experience celebrating Juneteenth.. When Jayylen's grandfather, Paw Paw Jimmy, begins preparing for a big Juneteenth celebration, Jayylen has a lot of questions. Most importantly, what is Juneteenth? His mother and Paw Paw Jimmy explain that the holiday marks the anniversary of when enslaved African Americans found out that they were free. Paw Paw Jimmy plays some zydeco for him, which is the type of music they will dance to at the celebration. Jayylen practices every day so that he will be able to play the frottoir (a percussion instrument similar to a washboard) for everyone. But will he be able to pull off an even bigger surprise for the day?.
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9780593568149
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Book
The Night Before Freedom
By Armand, Glenda
This moving picture book tells the story of Juneteenth with all the care and reverence such a holiday deserves. The rhyming text and stunning illustrations will teach children about this historic day in history.. 'Twas the night before freedom, and all through the South, long-whispered rumors had, spread word of mouth. "It's coming! It's coming!" I heard people say. "Emancipation is coming our way.". Eight-year-old David and his family gather at Grandma's house in Galveston, Texas, for a cherished family tradition: Grandma's annual retelling of the story of Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln meant that all enslaved persons within the rebellious states would be free as of January 1, 1863.
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9780593567463
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Hardcover
All Good in the Hood
By Reed, Dwayne
This bounce-to-the-beat picture book by America's favorite rapping teacher from Chicago is a tribute to the sights and sounds of a city neighborhood and the special bond between brothers as they help each other overcome their fears. . Today is June 19th, Juneteenth's what they say and for my family, it's a very special day.. But sometimes the hood feels scary when we're walking around. I wish I could stay home where it's safe and sound. Where the dogs aren't BARKING, and the cars aren't HONKING, and the streetlights aren't FLICKERING.. But when Big Bro tells me it will all be okay, I know the noises can't hurt me and ruin my day.
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9780316461986
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Hardcover
Juneteenth for Mazie
By Cooper, Floyd
Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history -- the day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth.
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9781623701703
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Hardcover
Build a House
By Giddens, Rhiannon
Grammy Award winner Rhiannon Giddens celebrates Black history and culture in her unflinching, uplifting, and gorgeously illustrated picture book debut.I learned your words and wrote my song. I put my story down.As an acclaimed musician, singer, songwriter, and cofounder of the traditional African American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens has long used her art to mine America's musical past and manifest its future, passionately recovering lost voices and reconstructing a nation's musical heritage. Written as a song to commemorate the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth - which was originally performed with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma - and paired here with bold illustrations by painter Monica Mikai, Build a House tells the moving story of a people who would not be moved and the music that sustained them.
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9781536222524
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Hardcover
Come Juneteenth
By Rinaldi, Ann
Sis Goose is a beloved member of Luli's family, despite the fact that she was born a slave. But the family is harboring a terrible secret. And when Union soldiers arrive on their Texas plantation to announce that slaves have been declared free for nearly two years, Sis Goose is horrified to learn that the people she called family have lied to her for so long. She runs away--but her newly found freedom has tragic consequences. How could the state of Texas keep the news of the Emancipation Proclamation from reaching slaves? In this riveting Great Episodes historical drama, Ann Rinaldi sheds light on the events that led to the creation of Juneteenth, a celebration of freedom that continues today.
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9780152063924
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Book
All Different Now
By Johnson, Angela
Experience the joy of Juneteenth in this celebration of freedom from the award-winning team of Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis.Through the eyes of one little girl, All Different Now tells the story of the first Juneteenth, the day freedom finally came to the last of the slaves in the South. Since then, the observance of June 19 as African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. This stunning picture book includes notes from the author and illustrator, a timeline of important dates, and a glossary of relevant terms. Told in Angela Johnson's signature melodic style and brought to life by E.B. Lewis's striking paintings, All Different Now is a joyous portrait of the dawn breaking on the darkest time in our nation's history.
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9780689873768
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Hardcover
Addy
By Porter, Connie
Having Poppa home fills Addy's heart with happiness, and moving to a boarding house brings a new special friend--one who encourages Addy to always stay hopeful for the future. Then Addy enjoys the victory of having her idea chosen for a fair fundraiser, where a friendship is born, and the answer to a riddle brings a wonderful surprise. But will the rest of Addy's family be reunited before the New Year?
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9781609584153
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Paperback
Letters from a Slave Girl
By Lyons, Mary E.
Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery; it's the only life she has ever known. Now, with the death of her mistress, there is a chance she will be given her freedom, and for the first time Harriet feels hopeful. But hoping can be dangerous, because disappointment is devastating. Harriet has one last hope, though: escape to the North. And as she faces numerous ordeals, this hope gives her the strength she needs to survive. Based on the true story of Harriet Ann Jacobs, Letters from a Slave Girl reveals in poignant detail what thousands of African-American women had to endure not long ago. It's a story that will enlighten, anger, and never be forgotten.
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9781416936374
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Paperback
Freedom's Gifts
By Wilson, Sharon
With the help of their elderly Aunt Marshall, June and her cousin Lillie celebrate Juneteenth, the day Texas slaves found out they had been freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation."
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9780689802690
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Hardcover
________ Y O U N G A D U L T ________
Copper Sun
By Draper, Sharon M.
Copper Sun is the epic story of a young girl torn from her African village, sold into slavery, and stripped of everything she has ever known - except hope.
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9781416953487
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Paperback
Daughters of Jubilation
By Corthron, Kara Lee
In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move. On top of all that, Evvie's magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation - a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie's talents waken, something dark comes loose and threatens to resurface ... And when the demons of Evvie's past finally shake free, she must embrace her mighty lineage, and summon the power that lies within her.
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9781481459501
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Hardcover
Race Relations
By Diggs, Barbara
How could a country founded on the honorable ideals of freedom and equality have so willingly embraced the evils of enslavement and oppression? America's history of race relations is a difficult one, full of uncomfortable inconsistencies and unpleasant truths. Although the topic is sensitive, it is important to face this painful past unflinchingly -- knowing this history is key to understanding today's racial climate and working towards a more harmonious society. In Race Relations: The Struggle for Equality in America, kids ages 12 to 15 follow the evolution of race relations in America from the country's earliest beginnings until present day. The book examines how the concept of race was constructed in the seventeenth century and how American colonists used racial differences to justify slavery, discrimination and the persecution of people of color.
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9781619305557
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Paperback
This Is My America
By Johnson, Kim
"Incredible and searing." --Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear MartinThe Hate U Give meets Just Mercy in this unflinching yet uplifting first novel that explores the racist injustices in the American justice system.Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time--her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy's older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a "thug" on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike.
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9780593118764
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Hardcover
A Sitting in St. James
By Williams-garcia, Rita
A tour-de-force from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia, this story of an antebellum plantation - and the enduring legacies of slavery upon every person who lives there - is essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family's objections, to sit for a portrait.While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations - from the big house to out in the fields - of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved.This astonishing novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork - empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.
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9780062367297
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Hardcover
My name is not Friday
By Walter, Jon
Well-mannered Samuel and his mischievous younger brother Joshua are free black boys living in an orphanage during the end of the Civil War. Samuel takes the blame for Joshua's latest prank, and the consequence is worse than he could ever imagine. He's taken from the orphanage to the South, given a new name -- Friday -- and sold into slavery. What follows is a heartbreaking but hopeful account of Samuel's journey from freedom, to captivity, and back again.
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9780545855228
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Print book
Day of Tears
By Lester, Julius
Since their mother Fanny left, Emma has taken care of the Butler children, Sarah and Frances. She wants to raise them to have good hearts, as a rift in morals has ripped the Butler household apart: Sarah and their mother oppose the inhumanity of slavery while Frances and their father Pierce believe in the Southern lifestyle and treatment of blacks. Now, to pay off mounting gambling debts, Pierce decides to cash in on his "assets" and host the biggest slave auction in American history, at the price of his humanity. During those two days in Georgia, the skies weep on the proceedings below, for although Butler promises Emma's parents not to sell her, money, desperation, and greed enable him to justify his any misdeed. Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, and shifting first-person points of view, readers will travel with Emma and others through time and place, and come to understand that every decision has its consequences, and final judgment is passed down not by man, but by his maker.
What is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) is holiday commemorating the effective ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, over two years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation and months after the end of the Civil War, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.
Juneteenth is a celebration of hope and the enduring spirit of freedom. Checkout these titles about the history of slavery in the United States and other titles by African American authors that continue to shape our culture, celebrate liberation, and acknowledge the ongoing work towards freedom and equality.
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Watermelon and Red Birds
By Taylor, Nicole
The first cookbook to celebrate and investigate Juneteenth, from critically acclaimed food writer Nicole Taylor who draws on her decade of experiences observing the holiday.Nearly two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Union troops spread the world of liberation to African Americans. And so, on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, festivities sprung up with song, dance, and most importantly, food. Having been officially recognized and a national holiday, eaters are eager to raise glasses and break bread to honor America's forgotten backbone. Watermelon and Red Birds contains 75 delicious dishes that are simple, victory garden-driven, and approachable. Nicole Taylor provides a new technique to dining at home with all the basics for hosting a bounteous dinner party, all-day brunch, brawny BBQ, clever picnic, and parade-themed kickback, along with thoughtful, moving essays about the meaning of Juneteenth.
On Juneteenth
By Gordon-reed, Annette
The mesmerizing story of Juneteenth's integral importance to American history -- told by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Texas native.Interweaving American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed, the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas in the 1850s, recounts the origins of Juneteenth and explores the legacies of the holiday that remain with us.From the earliest presence of black people in Texas -- in the 1500s, well before enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown -- to the day in Galveston on June 19, 1865, when General Gordon Granger announced the end of slavery, Gordon-Reed's insightful and inspiring essays present the saga of a "frontier" peopled by Native Americans, Anglos, Tejanos, and Blacks that became a slaveholder's republic.
Envisioning Emancipation
By Willis, Deborah
The Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. As we approach its 150th anniversary, what do we really know about those who experienced slavery? In their pioneering book, Envisioning Emancipation, renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis and historian of slavery Barbara Krauthamer have amassed 150 photographs - some never before published - from the antebellum days of the 1850s through the New Deal era of the 1930s. The authors vividly display the seismic impact of emancipation on African Americans born before and after the Proclamation, providing a perspective on freedom and slavery and a way to understand the photos as documents of engagement, action, struggle, and aspiration. Filled with powerful images of lives too often ignored or erased from historical records, Envisioning Emancipation will be a keepsake for many years to come.
Race And Liberty in the New Nation
By Wolf, Eva Sheppard
By examining how ordinary Virginia citizens grappled with the vexing problem of slavery in a society dedicated to universal liberty, Eva Sheppard Wolf broadens our understanding of such important concepts as freedom, slavery, emancipation, and race in the early years of the Americ
Stony the Road
By Jr., Henry Louis Gates
A profound new rendering of the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that resubjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind.The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked "a new birth of freedom" in Lincoln's America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of our leading chroniclers of the African-American experience, seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the "nadir" of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance. Through his close reading of the visual culture of this tragic era, Gates reveals the many faces of Jim Crow and how, together, they reinforced a stark color line between white and black Americans. Bringing a lifetime of wisdom to bear as a scholar, filmmaker, and public intellectual, Gates uncovers the roots of structural racism in our own time, while showing how African Americans after slavery combatted it by articulating a vision of a "New Negro" to force the nation to recognize their humanity and unique contributions to America as it hurtled toward the modern age.The story Gates tells begins with great hope, with the Emancipation Proclamation, Union victory, and the liberation of nearly 4 million enslaved African-Americans. Until 1877, the federal government, goaded by the activism of Frederick Douglass and many others, tried at various turns to sustain their new rights. But the terror unleashed by white paramilitary groups in the former Confederacy, combined with deteriorating economic conditions and a loss of Northern will, restored "home rule" to the South. The retreat from Reconstruction was followed by one of the most violent periods in our history, with thousands of black people murdered or lynched and many more afflicted by the degrading impositions of Jim Crow segregation. An essential tour through one of America's fundamental historical tragedies, Stony the Road is also a story of heroic resistance, as figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida B. Wells fought to create a counter-narrative, and culture, inside the lion's mouth. As sobering as this tale is, it also has within it the inspiration that comes with encountering the hopes our ancestors advanced against the longest odds.
Caste
By Wilkerson, Isabel
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling author of The Warmth of Other Suns examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. "As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power - which groups have it and which do not." In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings. Beyond race, class, or other factors, there is a powerful caste system that influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations, including divine will, bloodlines, stigma, and more. Using riveting stories about people - including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball's Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself, and many others - she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day. She documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their out-cast of the Jews; she discusses why the cruel logic of caste requires that there be a bottom rung for those in the middle to measure themselves against; she writes about the surprising health costs of caste, in depression and life expectancy, and the effects of this hierarchy on our culture and politics. Finally, she points forward to ways America can move beyond the artificial and destructive separations of human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.Beautifully written, original, and revealing, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is an eye-opening story of people and history, and a reexamination of what lies under the surface of ordinary lives and of American life today.
Roots
By Perseus,
Roots is a groundbreaking story of history and family that spanned continents and touched generations. One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots galvanized the nation and created an extraordinary political, racial, social, and cultural dialogue that hadnt been seen since the publication of Uncle Toms Cabin. The book sold over one million copies in the first year, and the miniseries was watched by an astonishing 130 million people. It also won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Roots opened up the minds of Americans of all colors and faiths to one of the darkest and most painful parts of Americas past, and we continue to feel its reverberations today.
Who Freed the Slaves?
By Richards, Leonard L.
In the popular imagination, slavery in the United States ended with Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation may have been limitedfreeing only slaves within Confederate states who were able to make their way to Union linesbut it is nonetheless generally seen as the key moment, with Lincolns leadership setting into motion a train of inevitable events that culminated in the passage of an outright ban the Thirteenth Amendment. The real story, however, is much more complicatedand dramaticthan that. With Who Freed the Slaves, distinguished historian Leonard L. Richards tells the little-known story of the battle over the Thirteenth Amendment, and of James Ashley, the unsung Ohio congressman who proposed the amendment and steered it to passage.
Freedom National
By Oakes, James
A powerful history of emancipation that reshapes our understanding of Lincoln, the Civil War, and the end of American slavery.Freedom National is a groundbreaking history of emancipation that joins the political initiatives of Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress with the courageous actions of Union soldiers and runaway slaves in the South. It shatters the widespread conviction that the Civil War was first and foremost a war to restore the Union and only gradually, when it became a military necessity, a war to end slavery. These two aimsLiberty and Union, one and inseparablewere intertwined in Republican policy from the very start of the war. By summer 1861 the federal government invoked military authority to begin freeing slaves, immediately and without slaveholder compensation, as they fled to Union lines in the disloyal South.
The Thin Light of Freedom
By Ayers, Edward L
Amid the devastation of war rise the first stirrings of freedom in this absorbing, ground-level narrative by an acclaimed historian.Virginia's Great Valley, prosperous in peace with a rich soil and an enslaved workforce, invited destruction in war. Voracious Union and Confederate armies ground up the valley, consuming crops, livestock, fences, and human life. Pitched battles at Gettysburg, Lynchburg, and Cedar Creek punctuated a cycle of vicious attacks and reprisals in which armies burned whole towns for retribution.North of the Mason-Dixon line, in the Pennsylvania portion of the valley, free black families sent husbands and sons to fight with the U.S. Colored Troops. In letters home, even as Lincoln commemorated the dead at Gettysburg, they spoke movingly of a war for emancipation. As defeat and the end of slavery descended on Virginia, with the political drama of Reconstruction unfolding in Washington, the crowded classrooms of the Freedmen's Bureau schools spoke of a new society struggling to emerge. Here is history at its best: powerful, insightful, grounded in human detail. 30 illustrations; 10 maps
Four Hundred Souls
By Kendi, Ibram X.
The story begins in 1619 - a year before the Mayflower - when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span.
Sweet Taste of Liberty
By Mcdaniel, W. Caleb
The unforgettable saga of one enslaved woman's fight for justice--and reparations Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded with Wood's employer, abducted her, and sold her back into bondage. She remained enslaved throughout the Civil War, giving birth to a son in Mississippi and never forgetting who had put her in this position. By 1869, Wood had obtained her freedom for a second time and returned to Cincinnati, where she sued Ward for damages in 1870. Astonishingly, after eight years of litigation, Wood won her case: in 1878, a Federal jury awarded her $2,500. The decision stuck on appeal. More important than the amount, though the largest ever awarded by an American court in restitution for slavery, was the fact that any money was awarded at all. By the time the case was decided, Ward had become a wealthy businessman and a pioneer of convict leasing in the South. Wood's son later became a prominent Chicago lawyer, and she went on to live until 1912. McDaniel's book is an epic tale of a black woman who survived slavery twice and who achieved more than merely a moral victory over one of her oppressors. Above all, Sweet Taste of Liberty is a portrait of an extraordinary individual as well as a searing reminder of the lessons of her story, which establish beyond question the connections between slavery and the prison system that rose in its place.
Black Pain
By Williams, Terrie
Terrie Williams knows that Black people are hurting. She knows because she's one of them. Terrie had made it: she had launched her own public relations company with such clients as Eddie Murphy and Johnnie Cochran. Yet she was in constant pain, waking up in terror, overeating in search of relief. For thirty years she kept on her game face of success, exhausting herself daily to satisfy her clients' needs while neglecting her own. Terrie finally collapsed, staying in bed for days. She had no clue what was wrong or if there was a way out. She had hit rock bottom and she needed and got help. She learned her problem had a name -- depression -- and that many suffered from it, limping through their days, hiding their hurt. As she healed, her mission became clear: break the silence of this crippling taboo and help those who suffer.
River of Blood
By Cahan, Richard
In the late 1930s, the federal government embarked on an unusual project. As a part of the Works Progress Administration's efforts to give jobs to unemployed Americans, government workers tracked down 3,000 men and women who had been enslaved before and during the Civil War. The workers asked them probing questions about slave life. What did they think about their slaveholders? What songs did they sing? What games did they play? Did they always think about escaping? The result was a remarkable compilation of interviews known as the Slave Narratives. This book highlights those narratives -- condensing tens of thousands of pages into short excerpts from about 100 former slaves and pairs their accounts with their photographs, taken by the workers sent to record their stories.
The Black Book
By Harris, Middleton A.
A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s with the original cover restored.. "I am so pleased the book is alive again. I still think there is no other work that tells and visualizes a story of such misery with seriousness, humor, grace and triumph." - Toni Morrison. Seventeenth-century sketches of Africans as they appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled "A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.". In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly five hundred others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America - The Black Book. Now in a newly restored hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith joined Harris and Morrison (then a Random House editor, ultimately a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Nobel Laureate) to spend months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials - transcripts from fugitive slaves trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and celebrated abolitionists, as well as chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century, and vibrant posters from "Black Hollywood" films of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, it was an article she found while researching this project that provided the inspiration for Morrisons masterpiece, Beloved.. A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented and featuring a foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.
________ A D U L T F I C T I O N ________
Juneteenth
By Ellison, Ralph
NATIONAL BESTSELLER"[A]n extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall."--NewsdayFrom Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. "Tell me what happened while there's still time," demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself.
The Underground Railroad
By Whitehead, Colson
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned - Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey - hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Homegoing
By Gyasi, Yaa
Winner of the NBCC's John Leonard First Book PrizeA New York Times 2016 Notable BookOne of Oprah's 10 Favorite Books of 2016NPR's Debut Novel of the YearOne of Buzzfeed's Best Fiction Books Of 2016One of Time's Top 10 Novels of 2016, Winner of 2017 PEN Hemingway award for debut fiction. "Homegoing is an inspiration." - Ta-Nehisi Coates The unforgettable New York Times best seller begins with the story of two half-sisters, separated by forces beyond their control: one sold into slavery, the other married to a British slaver. Written with tremendous sweep and power, Homegoing traces the generations of family who follow, as their destinies lead them through two continents and three hundred years of history, each life indeliably drawn, as the legacy of slavery is fully revealed in light of the present day. Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
The Water Dancer
By Coates, Ta-nehisi
Number one New York Times best sellerOprahs Book Club PickFrom the National Book Award-winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom."This potent book about Americas most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist." (San Francisco Chronicle) In development as a major motion pictureAdapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfreys Harpo Films Nominated for the NAACP Image Award Named One of Pastes Best Novels of the Decade Named One of the Best Books of the Year by:Time The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Vanity Fair Esquire Good Housekeeping Paste Town & Country The New York Public Library The Dallas Morning News Kirkus Reviews Library Journal "Nearly every paragraph is laced through with dense, gorgeously evocative descriptions of a vanished world and steeped in its own vivid vocabulary." (Entertainment Weekly) Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home hes ever known.So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginias proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as hes enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hirams resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children - the violent and capricious separation of families - and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of todays most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.Praise for The Water Dancer"Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations - and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer...is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance.... Whats most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal.... Timeless and instantly canon-worthy." (Rolling Stone)
Conjure Women
By Atakora, Afia
A dazzling debut novel that sweeps across eras and generations to tell the story of a mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing--and the conjuring of curses.The intimate bonds and transgressions among people and across racial divides, during both slaverytime and freedomtime, are at the heart of this mesmerizing and surprising first novel. Like her mother, Rue is an all-knowing midwife, healer, and conjurer of curses on the plantation of Marse Charles. Moving back and forth in time between the years before and after the Civil War, Conjure Women tells the story of Rue, the families she cares for, and the mysteries and secrets she knows about the plantation owner's daughter, Varina. Afia Atakora is a brilliant young writer who creates unforgettable characters, and an enthralling story written in unique and beautiful prose.
Beloved
By Morrison, Toni
Upon the original publication of Beloved, John Leonard wrote in the Los Angeles Times: "I can't imagine American literature without it." Nearly two decades later, The New York Times chose Beloved as the best American novel of the previous fifty years.Toni Morrison's magnificent Pulitzer Prize-winning work - first published in 1987 - brought the wrenching experience of slavery into the literature of our time, enlarging our comprehension of America's original sin. Set in post-Civil War Ohio, it is the story of Sethe, an escaped slave who has lost a husband and buried a child; who has withstood savagery and not gone mad. Sethe, who now lives in a small house on the edge of town with her daughter, Denver, her mother-in-law, Baby Suggs, and a disturbing, mesmerizing apparition who calls herself Beloved.
_____ J U V E N I L E N O N F I C T I O N _____
She Persisted
By Moses, Shelia P.
Inspired by the #1 New York Times bestseller She Persisted by Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger, a chapter book series about women who spoke up and rose up against the odds - including Opal Lee!. Opal Lee grew up as a Black girl in Texas at a time when Black and white people were kept separate and Black people had fewer opportunities than white people did. She knew that this wasn't right, and she grew up to be a teacher and a community leader, determined to help create a better future for all people. A big part of her work and life was making Juneteenth a national holiday to mark the end of enslavement for Black Americans. She loved this day as both a celebration and as a way of teaching about the past. Opal's work and dedication has helped millions of people learn about important parts of American history.
What is Juneteenth?
By Kirsti, Jewel,
On June 19, 1865, a group of enslaved men, women, and children in Texas gathered around a Union soldier and listened as he read the most remarkable words they would ever hear. They were no longer enslaved: they were free. The inhumane practice of forcedlabor with no pay was now illegal in all of the United States. This news was cause for celebration, so the group of people jumped in excitement, danced, and wept tears of joy. They did not know it at the time, but their joyous celebration of freedom would become a holiday--Juneteenth--that is observed each year by more and more Americans.
Free at Last
By Rolle, Sojourner Kincaid
This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today.After 300 years of forced bondage;hands bound, descendants of Africapicked up their souls - all that they owned - leaving shackles where they fell on the ground,headed for the nearest resting place to be found. Deeply emotional, evocative free verse by poet and activist Sojourner Kincaid Rolle traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas to contemporary observances all over the United States. This is an ode to the strength of Black Americans and a call to remember and honor a holiday whose importance reverberates far beyond the borders of Texas.
The Real History of Juneteenth )
By Smith, Elliott
Juneteenth is the celebration of the day enslaved people in Texas were told they were freed -- two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Explore Juneteenth's little-told history, from the first Jubilee to the making of a national holiday.Have you ever considered what's missing from history books? In Left Out of History, explore the misunderstood and underexamined past in this engaging series. Compelling photographs and primary sources help bring previously buried history to light. Read Woke™ Books are created in partnership with Cicely Lewis, the Read Woke librarian. Inspired by a belief that knowledge is power, Read Woke Books seek to amplify the voices of people of the global majority (people who are of African, Arab, Asian, and Latin American descent and identify as not white) , provide information about groups that have been disenfranchised, share perspectives of people who have been underrepresented or oppressed, challenge social norms and disrupt the status quo, and encourage readers to take action in their community.
The Story of Juneteenth
By Williamson, Dorena
Introduce little learners to the Juneteenth holiday with this 250-word board book about its origins and traditions.What are the origins of America's newest national holiday? With simple, age-appropriate language and colorful illustrations, this little board book introduces children to the events of June 19, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the people of Texas that all enslaved people were declared free and the Civil War had ended. The book also connects those events to today's celebrations. Thoroughly researched and historically accurate, The Story of Juneteenth distills a pivotal moment in U.S. history and creates an opportunity for further conversation between parent or caregiver and child.
Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free
By Duncan, Alice Faye
The true story of Black activist Opal Lee and her vision of Juneteenth as a holiday for everyone celebrates Black joy and inspires children to see their dreams blossom. Growing up in Texas, Opal knew the history of Juneteenth, but she soon discovered that many Americans had never heard of the holiday that represents the nation's creed of "freedom for all."Every year, Opal looked forward to the Juneteenth picnic--a drumming, dancing, delicious party. She knew from Granddaddy Zak's stories that Juneteenth celebrated the day the freedom news of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation finally sailed into Texas in 1865--over two years after the president had declared it! But Opal didn't always see freedom in her Texas town. Then one Juneteenth day when Opal was twelve years old, an angry crowd burned down her brand-new home.
Summer Crafts Across Cultures
By Borgert-spaniol, Megan
Summer is a season of celebration! Join the fun with thirteen festive crafts that celebrate holidays from around the world. Create a hibiscus straw to commemorate Juneteenth. Braid puzzle piece friendship bracelets to mark the International Day of Friendship. It's always the season for crafting!
The History of Juneteenth
By Norwood, Arlisha
An introduction to the history of Juneteenth for kids ages 6 to 9 On June 19, 1865, a Union soldier traveled to Texas to tell the enslaved people who lived there that they were free - that slavery was now illegal in every state. The people danced and sang in celebration of their freedom. Today, we pay tribute to this historical day with a special holiday on June 19 called Juneteenth. This colorfully illustrated story takes kids on an exciting journey through all the events that led up to the first Juneteenth, the day itself, and the impact it had on the future of the United States. What sets this book apart from other Juneteenth books for kids: A thorough history - Kids will learn the Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How of Juneteenth, and take a quick quiz to test their knowledge.
The Juneteenth Story
By Agostini, Alliah L.
With colorful illustrations and a timeline, this introductory history of Juneteenth for kids details the evolution of the holiday commemorating the date the last enslaved people learned of their freedom.On June 19, 1865 - more than two years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - enslaved Texans finally learned they were free. That day became a day of remembrance and celebration that changed and grew from year to year.Learn about the events that led to emancipation and why it took so long for the enslaved people in Texas to hear the news. The first Juneteenth began as "Jubilee Day," where families celebrated and learned of their new rights as citizens. As Black Texans moved to other parts of the country, they brought their traditions along with them, and Juneteenth continued to grow and develop.
Free at Last!
By Rappaport, Doreen
True stories and traditional songs shed light on a lesser known era in African-American history — the crucial decades between Emancipation and the start of the Civil Rights movement.
Emancipation Proclamation
By Bolden, Tonya
Published on the anniversary of when President Abraham Lincoln's order went into effect, this book offers readers a unique look at the events that led to the Emancipation Proclamation. Filled with little-known facts and fascinating details, it includes excerpts from historical sources, archival images, and new research that debunks myths about the Emancipation Proclamation and its causes. Complete with a timeline, glossary, and bibliography, Emancipation Proclamation is an engrossing new historical resource from award-winning children's book author Tonya Bolden.Praise for Emancipation Proclamation:FOUR STARRED REVIEWS "A convincing, handsomely produced argument..." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Bolden makes excellent use of primary sources; the pages are filled with archival photos, engravings, letters, posters, maps, newspaper articles, and other period documents.
The Story of Juneteenth
By Otfinoski, Steven
The Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War have brought an official end to slavery, yet some Southern slave owners are refusing to comply. The road to freedom is still long and hard for many African-Americans, but youre not giving up. Will you Overcome obstacles as you make your way north from Texas, looking to begin a new life of freedom? Seek out your family, from whom you were separated as a child, after emancipation? Fight back when you take work as an apprentice but find that youre still treated as a slave? When YOU CHOOSE, history gets real.,
________ J U V E N I L E F I C T I O N ________
Let's Celebrate Juneteenth – An Inclusive Holiday Board Book for Babies and Toddlers
By Mudpuppy,
Introduce children to the history of Juneteenth with the Let's Celebrate Juneteenth Board Book from Mudpuppy. Featuring rhyming text and colorful, bold artwork, this board book is a beautiful celebration of this important holiday. A wonderful addition to your child's bookshelf!. * 26 pages * Trim: 7 x 7", 17.78 x 17.78 * All Mudpuppy products adhere to CPSIA, ASTM, and CE Safety Regulations. * Made responsibly from FSC-certified material. Printed with nontoxic inks.
Jayylen's Juneteenth Surprise
By Lavette, Lavaille
Created in partnership with Ebony Jr., this inspiring Little Golden Book tells the story of one young boy's first experience celebrating Juneteenth.. When Jayylen's grandfather, Paw Paw Jimmy, begins preparing for a big Juneteenth celebration, Jayylen has a lot of questions. Most importantly, what is Juneteenth? His mother and Paw Paw Jimmy explain that the holiday marks the anniversary of when enslaved African Americans found out that they were free. Paw Paw Jimmy plays some zydeco for him, which is the type of music they will dance to at the celebration. Jayylen practices every day so that he will be able to play the frottoir (a percussion instrument similar to a washboard) for everyone. But will he be able to pull off an even bigger surprise for the day?.
The Night Before Freedom
By Armand, Glenda
This moving picture book tells the story of Juneteenth with all the care and reverence such a holiday deserves. The rhyming text and stunning illustrations will teach children about this historic day in history.. 'Twas the night before freedom, and all through the South, long-whispered rumors had, spread word of mouth. "It's coming! It's coming!" I heard people say. "Emancipation is coming our way.". Eight-year-old David and his family gather at Grandma's house in Galveston, Texas, for a cherished family tradition: Grandma's annual retelling of the story of Juneteenth, the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States.. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln meant that all enslaved persons within the rebellious states would be free as of January 1, 1863.
All Good in the Hood
By Reed, Dwayne
This bounce-to-the-beat picture book by America's favorite rapping teacher from Chicago is a tribute to the sights and sounds of a city neighborhood and the special bond between brothers as they help each other overcome their fears. . Today is June 19th, Juneteenth's what they say and for my family, it's a very special day.. But sometimes the hood feels scary when we're walking around. I wish I could stay home where it's safe and sound. Where the dogs aren't BARKING, and the cars aren't HONKING, and the streetlights aren't FLICKERING.. But when Big Bro tells me it will all be okay, I know the noises can't hurt me and ruin my day.
Juneteenth for Mazie
By Cooper, Floyd
Mazie is ready to celebrate liberty. She is ready to celebrate freedom. She is ready to celebrate a great day in American history -- the day her ancestors were no longer slaves. Mazie remembers the struggles and the triumph, as she gets ready to celebrate Juneteenth.
Build a House
By Giddens, Rhiannon
Grammy Award winner Rhiannon Giddens celebrates Black history and culture in her unflinching, uplifting, and gorgeously illustrated picture book debut.I learned your words and wrote my song. I put my story down.As an acclaimed musician, singer, songwriter, and cofounder of the traditional African American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens has long used her art to mine America's musical past and manifest its future, passionately recovering lost voices and reconstructing a nation's musical heritage. Written as a song to commemorate the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth - which was originally performed with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma - and paired here with bold illustrations by painter Monica Mikai, Build a House tells the moving story of a people who would not be moved and the music that sustained them.
Come Juneteenth
By Rinaldi, Ann
Sis Goose is a beloved member of Luli's family, despite the fact that she was born a slave. But the family is harboring a terrible secret. And when Union soldiers arrive on their Texas plantation to announce that slaves have been declared free for nearly two years, Sis Goose is horrified to learn that the people she called family have lied to her for so long. She runs away--but her newly found freedom has tragic consequences. How could the state of Texas keep the news of the Emancipation Proclamation from reaching slaves? In this riveting Great Episodes historical drama, Ann Rinaldi sheds light on the events that led to the creation of Juneteenth, a celebration of freedom that continues today.
All Different Now
By Johnson, Angela
Experience the joy of Juneteenth in this celebration of freedom from the award-winning team of Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis.Through the eyes of one little girl, All Different Now tells the story of the first Juneteenth, the day freedom finally came to the last of the slaves in the South. Since then, the observance of June 19 as African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. This stunning picture book includes notes from the author and illustrator, a timeline of important dates, and a glossary of relevant terms. Told in Angela Johnson's signature melodic style and brought to life by E.B. Lewis's striking paintings, All Different Now is a joyous portrait of the dawn breaking on the darkest time in our nation's history.
Addy
By Porter, Connie
Having Poppa home fills Addy's heart with happiness, and moving to a boarding house brings a new special friend--one who encourages Addy to always stay hopeful for the future. Then Addy enjoys the victory of having her idea chosen for a fair fundraiser, where a friendship is born, and the answer to a riddle brings a wonderful surprise. But will the rest of Addy's family be reunited before the New Year?
Letters from a Slave Girl
By Lyons, Mary E.
Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery; it's the only life she has ever known. Now, with the death of her mistress, there is a chance she will be given her freedom, and for the first time Harriet feels hopeful. But hoping can be dangerous, because disappointment is devastating. Harriet has one last hope, though: escape to the North. And as she faces numerous ordeals, this hope gives her the strength she needs to survive. Based on the true story of Harriet Ann Jacobs, Letters from a Slave Girl reveals in poignant detail what thousands of African-American women had to endure not long ago. It's a story that will enlighten, anger, and never be forgotten.
Freedom's Gifts
By Wilson, Sharon
With the help of their elderly Aunt Marshall, June and her cousin Lillie celebrate Juneteenth, the day Texas slaves found out they had been freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation."
________ Y O U N G A D U L T ________
Copper Sun
By Draper, Sharon M.
Copper Sun is the epic story of a young girl torn from her African village, sold into slavery, and stripped of everything she has ever known - except hope.
Daughters of Jubilation
By Corthron, Kara Lee
In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move. On top of all that, Evvie's magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation - a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie's talents waken, something dark comes loose and threatens to resurface ... And when the demons of Evvie's past finally shake free, she must embrace her mighty lineage, and summon the power that lies within her.
Race Relations
By Diggs, Barbara
How could a country founded on the honorable ideals of freedom and equality have so willingly embraced the evils of enslavement and oppression? America's history of race relations is a difficult one, full of uncomfortable inconsistencies and unpleasant truths. Although the topic is sensitive, it is important to face this painful past unflinchingly -- knowing this history is key to understanding today's racial climate and working towards a more harmonious society. In Race Relations: The Struggle for Equality in America, kids ages 12 to 15 follow the evolution of race relations in America from the country's earliest beginnings until present day. The book examines how the concept of race was constructed in the seventeenth century and how American colonists used racial differences to justify slavery, discrimination and the persecution of people of color.
This Is My America
By Johnson, Kim
"Incredible and searing." --Nic Stone, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dear MartinThe Hate U Give meets Just Mercy in this unflinching yet uplifting first novel that explores the racist injustices in the American justice system.Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After seven years, Tracy is running out of time--her dad has only 267 days left. Then the unthinkable happens. The police arrive in the night, and Tracy's older brother, Jamal, goes from being a bright, promising track star to a "thug" on the run, accused of killing a white girl. Determined to save her brother, Tracy investigates what really happened between Jamal and Angela down at the Pike.
A Sitting in St. James
By Williams-garcia, Rita
A tour-de-force from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia, this story of an antebellum plantation - and the enduring legacies of slavery upon every person who lives there - is essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family's objections, to sit for a portrait.While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations - from the big house to out in the fields - of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved.This astonishing novel from award-winning author Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork - empathetic, brutal, and entirely human.
My name is not Friday
By Walter, Jon
Well-mannered Samuel and his mischievous younger brother Joshua are free black boys living in an orphanage during the end of the Civil War. Samuel takes the blame for Joshua's latest prank, and the consequence is worse than he could ever imagine. He's taken from the orphanage to the South, given a new name -- Friday -- and sold into slavery. What follows is a heartbreaking but hopeful account of Samuel's journey from freedom, to captivity, and back again.
Day of Tears
By Lester, Julius
Since their mother Fanny left, Emma has taken care of the Butler children, Sarah and Frances. She wants to raise them to have good hearts, as a rift in morals has ripped the Butler household apart: Sarah and their mother oppose the inhumanity of slavery while Frances and their father Pierce believe in the Southern lifestyle and treatment of blacks. Now, to pay off mounting gambling debts, Pierce decides to cash in on his "assets" and host the biggest slave auction in American history, at the price of his humanity. During those two days in Georgia, the skies weep on the proceedings below, for although Butler promises Emma's parents not to sell her, money, desperation, and greed enable him to justify his any misdeed. Through flashbacks and flash-forwards, and shifting first-person points of view, readers will travel with Emma and others through time and place, and come to understand that every decision has its consequences, and final judgment is passed down not by man, but by his maker.