You are here: Home > Books > African American History
Sort By:
Page of 1
Slavery in New England - Joanne Pope Melish Black Abolitionists (1700s-1800s) - Kerri Greenidge Patriots of Color in Revolutionary New England (1775-1790) - John Hannigan
A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question: Why did slavery take root in New England? Many Americans think of slavery as solely a Southern institution. In fact, the American slave trade was centered in New England, and enslaved people labored throughout the region from the mid-1600s through the American Revolution.Published by our friends at The Robbins House. A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question: Who actually freed the slaves? By 1837, when Susan Robbins Garrison became a founding member of the Concord Female Antislavery Society, black abolitionists already had a long history of demanding freedom and racial justice on their own terms. Published by our friends at The Robbins House. A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question: What were they fighting for? Fighting in the American army was just one avenue of escape offered by the Revolution from a lifetime of slavery. Published by our friends at The Robbins House.
Free Blacks in New England from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War (1775-1865) - Kerri Greenidge, John Hannigan Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark (1823-1892) - Kerri Greenidge Ellen Garrison Jackson, Fighter for Freedom during Reconstruction (1863-1875) - Kerri Greenidge
A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question: How free were free people of color? For free black men and women, life in 19th-century New England was one of sharp contradictions. The final abolition of slavery throughout New England did not occur till the mid-1800s. Published by our friends at The Robbins House. A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question: What is Ellen's legacy? "I feel as though I ought to strive to maintain my rights." Documents Ellen's life from Concord, Massachusetts, to Pasadena, California. Published by our friends at The Robbins House. A large illustrated four-fold brochure that serves to answer the question:  What did Ellen Garrison Jackson accomplish? Tells the story of a woman who challenged racism wherever she found it. Published by our friends at The Robbins House.
Anti-Black Racism in America - Joanne Pope Melish Quotations of Martin Luther King Jr. - Martin Luther King Jr. The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature - J. Drew Lanham (SIGNED)
Traces the history of anti-black racism -- with a special focus on Concord and Massachusetts -- from the early 1800s through the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minnesota. Includes a special sidebar defining how the words "race" and "racism" have been used and interpreted, throughout the years. Published by our friends at the Robbins House. About 80 quotations gleaned from the speeches and writings of Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). Includes a brief bio.
Applewood Books, 2004. Hardcover, 32 pp.
Edgefield County, South Carolina, has been home to generations of Lanhams, dating back to slavery. Given their family name by slaveholders, the Lanhams created a personal legacy of grit and affection even in the midst of hard times. Here we meet a number of these determined people, including the young Drew, who falls in love with the natural world around him. This is at once a moving memoir and an exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South and in America today.
Milkweed Editions, 2016. Paperback, 216 pp.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America - Ibram X. Kendi Black Earth Wisdom: Soulful Conversations with Black Environmentalists - Leah Penniman How to Be an Antiracist - Ibram X. Kendi
Some Americans cling desperately to the myth that we are living in a post-racial society, that the election of the first Black president spelled the doom of racism. In fact, racist thought is alive and well in America - more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues in Stamped from the Beginning, if we have any hope of grappling with this stark reality, we must first understand how racist ideas were developed, disseminated, and enshrined in American society. The life stories of five major American intellectuals offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists. From Puritan minister Cotton Mather to Thomas Jefferson, from fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to brilliant scholar W.E.B. Du Bois to legendary anti-prison activist Angela Davis, Kendi shows how and why some of our leading proslavery and pro-civil rights thinkers have challenged or helped cement racist ideas in America.

Contrary to popular conceptions, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. Instead, they were devised and honed by some of the most brilliant minds of each era. These intellectuals used their brilliance to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation’s racial disparities in everything from wealth to health. And while racist ideas are easily produced and easily consumed, they can also be discredited. In shedding much-needed light on the murky history of racist ideas, this book offers us the tools we need to expose them -- and in the process, gives us reason to hope. Ibram X. Kendi is The Thoreau Society's Dana S. Brigham Keynote Speaker for 2021.
Bold Type Books, 2017. Paperback, 608 pp.


While racial capitalism has attempted to sever their connection to the sacred earth for four hundred years,Black people have long seen the land and water as family, treating the earth as a home essential. Leah Penniman is among those who persist in recovering their ancient practices. Here she reminds us that ecological humility is an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage.
Amistad, HarperCollins, 2023. Hardcover, 290 pp.
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism -- and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. In this book, Kendi takes us through a widening circle of antiracist ideas -- from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities -- that will help us see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves. Ibram X. Kendi is The Thoreau Society's Dana S. Brigham Keynote Speaker for 2021.

One World, 2019. Hardcover, 320 pp.

Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 - Edited by Ibram X. Kendi, Keisha N. Blain Three Novels (Library of America) - Harriet Beecher Stowe
The story begins in 1619, when the White Lion brings "some 20 and odd Negroes" to the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United Sates. It takes us to the present, as African Americans continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Editors Kendi and Blain have assembled 90 writers each who explore brief periods of that four-hundred-year span. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future.
One World, 2021. Hardcover, 504 pp.
Three of Stowe's books in one handy volume: Uncle Tom's Cabin, The Minister's Wooing, and Oldtown Folks. Includes chronology.
Library of America, 1982. Hardcover, 1478 pp.