College of Arts and Letters (OER Hub): AAST 2200: Intro to African American Studies

This new resource provides comprehensive coverage of the many events that define the framework of African American history, including social, cultural, and political movements, and the struggles to gain freedom, equality and civil rights. Just as the history of African Americans has been dominated by struggles for freedom and equal rights, articles in Great Events from History: African American History emphasize key events in the study of slavery, the abolitionist movement, civil rights, discrimination, voting rights, and Supreme Court decisions. Other events focus on arts and entertainment, Black Nationalism, crime and punishment, economic issues, education, military history, politics & government, religion, riots and civil disturbances and women's issues. Take a look at just some of the recent events that are included in this comprehensive source: The election of Barack Obama in 2009 The opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC in 2011 The Black lives Matter movement of 2012 The ""Hands Up, Don't Shoot"" protests in Ferguson, MO in 2014. Essays have been supplemented with informational sidebars that will further inform a reader's understanding of the topics discussed, including primary source documents, court decisions, mission statements, laws, biographical profiles, and state statistics that will deepen a reader's understanding of the topic. Designed for high school, undergraduate and public libraries, this new resource provides students and researchers with comprehensive and accessible material designed to shed a new light on the study of African American history.

A Companion to African American History is a collection of original and authoritative essays arranged thematically and topically, covering a wide range of subjects from the seventeenth century to the present day. Analyzes the major sources and the most influential books and articles in the field Includes discussions of globalization, region, migration, gender, class and social forces that make up the broad cultural fabric of African American history

In this landmark guide, nearly two dozen essays by scholars, educators, and museum leaders suggest the next steps in the interpretation of African American history and culture from the colonial period to the twentieth century at history museums and historic sites. This diverse anthology addresses both historical research and interpretive methodologies, including investigating church and legal records, using social media, navigating sensitive or difficult topics, preserving historic places, engaging students and communities, and strengthening connections between local and national history. Case studies of exhibitions, tours, and school programs from around the country provide practical inspiration, including photographs of projects and examples of exhibit label text. Highlights include: -Amanda Seymour discusses the prevalence of "false nostalgia" at the homes of the first five presidents and offers practical solutions to create a more inclusive, nuanced history. -Dr. Bernard Powers reveals that African American church records are a rich but often overlooked source for developing a more complete portrayal of individuals and communities. -Dr. David Young, executive director of Cliveden, uses his experience in reinterpreting this National Historic Landmark to identify four ways that people respond to a history that has been too often untold, ignored, or appropriated--and how museums and historic sites can constructively respond. -Dr. Matthew Pinsker explains that historic sites may be missing a huge opportunity in telling the story of freedom and emancipation by focusing on the underground railroad rather than its much bigger "upper-ground" counterpart. -Martha Katz-Hyman tackles the challenges of interpreting the material culture of both enslaved and free African Americans in the years before the Civil War by discussing the furnishing of period rooms. -Dr. Benjamin Filene describes three "micro-public history" projects that lead to new ways of understanding the past, handling source limitations, building partnerships, and reaching audiences. -Andrea Jones shares her approach for engaging students through historical simulations based on the "Fight for Your Rights" school program at the Atlanta History Center. -A exhibit on African American Vietnam War veterans at the Heinz History Center not only linked local and international events, but became an award-winning model of civic engagement. -A collaboration between a university and museum that began as a local history project interpreting the Scottsboro Boys Trial as a website and brochure ended up changing Alabama law. A list of national organizations and an extensive bibliography on the interpretation of African American history provide convenient gateways to additional resources.

In Long Road to Hard Truth: The 100 Year Mission to Create the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Robert L. Wilkins tells the story of how his curiosity about why there wasn't a national museum dedicated to African American history and culture became an obsession-eventually leading him to quit his job as an attorney when his wife was seven months pregnant with their second child, and make it his mission to help the museum become a reality. Long Road to Hard Truth chronicles the early history, when staunch advocates sought to create a monument for Black soldiers fifty years after the end of the Civil War and in response to the pervasive indignities of the time, including lynching, Jim Crow segregation, and the slander of the racist film Birth of a Nation. The movement soon evolved to envision creating a national museum, and Wilkins follows the endless obstacles through the decades, culminating in his honor of becoming a member of the Presidential Commission that wrote the plan for creating the museum and how, with support of both Black and White Democrats and Republicans, Congress finally authorized the museum. In September 2016, exactly 100 years after the movement to create it began, the Smithsonian will open the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The book's title is inspired in part by James Baldwin, who testified in Congress in 1968 that "My history... contains the truth about America. It is going to be hard to teach it." Long Road to Hard Truth concludes that this journey took 100 years because many in America are unwilling to confront the history of America's legacy of slavery and discrimination, and that the only reason this museum finally became a reality is that an unlikely, bipartisan coalition of political leaders had the courage and wisdom to declare that America could not, and should not, continue to evade the hard truth.

For over two centuries, the topic of slave breeding has occupied a controversial place in the master narrative of American history. From nineteenth-century abolitionists to twentieth-century filmmakers and artists, Americans have debated whether slave owners deliberately and coercively manipulated the sexual practices and marital status of enslaved African Americans to reproduce new generations of slaves for profit. In this bold and provocative book, historian Gregory Smithers investigates how African Americans have narrated, remembered, and represented slave-breeding practices. He argues that while social and economic historians have downplayed the significance of slave breeding, African Americans have never been able to forget the trauma of violence and sexual coercion associated with the plantation South. By placing African American histories and memories of slave breeding within the larger context of America's history of racial and gender discrimination, Smithers reveals how sexual exploitation was both experienced and remembered by African Americans to inform how black Americans understand the political, social, and cultural nature of life in the United States. This fascinating, provocative work sheds much-needed light on African American cultural memories, the perceptions of fragile black families, and the long history of racially motivated violence against men, women, and children of colour.

Founded in 1916 as The Journal of Negro History by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, The Journal of African American History (JAAH) is the leading scholarly publication in the field of African American history. Published by the University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), JAAH publishes original scholarly articles and book reviews on all aspects of the African American experience. JAAH embraces ASALH’s mission of promoting, researching, preserving, interpreting, and disseminating “information about Black life, history, and culture to the global community.” Numerous articles published in JAAH have been widely cited and circulated, won awards, and/or broadly reprinted. While each issue covers various dimensions of the African American historical experience, JAAH also publishes special issues, symposia, and roundtable forums on cutting edge themes and topics within the field.

Includes articles, games, and suggestions for activities based on African American history.

Conference papers from 2022

Videos that show how to use African American History Online, a database provided by Shelton State Community College to its students. All videos are close captioned.

This lesson traces the long history of how African Americans have used music as a vehicle for communicating beliefs, aspirations, observations, joys, despair, resistance, and more across U.S. history.

This Teacher's Guide offers a collection of lessons and resources for K-12 social studies, literature, and arts classrooms that center around the achievements, perspectives, and experiences of African Americans across U.S. history. Below you will find materials for teaching and learning about the perspectives of slaves and free African Americans during the American Revolution, the work of the Freedman’s Bureau during and after Reconstruction, the artistry of Jacob Lawrence, the reality faced by African American soldiers returning home after fighting in WWI, the songs and efforts of the Freedom Riders during the long civil rights movements, and the works of Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Maya Angelou.