Image: Researchers using the Schomburg Collection, 1938 (New York Public Library).

Books

Angel Adams Parham & Anika Prather: The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature.

Derrick P. Alridge, Cornelius L. Bynum, & James B. Stewart: The Black Intellectual Tradition: African American Thought in the Twentieth Century.

Mia E. Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, & Barbara D. Savage (editors): Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women.

Carol B. Conaway & Kristin Waters (editors): Black Women’s Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds.

Brittney C. Cooper: Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women.

Keisha N. Blain, Christopher Cameron, & Ashley D. Farmer (editors): New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition.

Articles

AAIHS:

• Black Intellectual History. (Article collection.)
• Black Intellectuals and the Crisis of Democracy. (Article collection.)
• Roundtable on Black Women’s Intellectual History. (Article collection.)
• The Contours of Black Intellectual History.

Derrick P. Alridge: On Education and African American Intellectual History.

Keisha N. Blain: Writing Black Women’s Intellectual History.

Brandon Byrd: The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Myth of Objectivity.

Chris Cameron:

• Five Approaches to Intellectual History.
• Black Intellectual History and the Long Struggle for Freedom.

M. Keith Claybrook, Jr.: Dr. King and the Foundation of a Black Intellectual-Activist.

Pero G. Dagbovie: Reflections on African American Intellectual History.

Robert Greene II: The Rich Legacy of African American Political and Intellectual History.

La TaSha Levy: Beyond the ‘Great Men’ Canon of Black Intellectual History.

Celeste Day Moore: Place in the African American Intellectual Tradition.

See Also:

Black Education; Black Freedom

Journalism & the Black Freedom Struggle

Black Studies & the Black Campus Movement

The History & Legacy of Black-Owned Bookstores

Image: Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael playing with a child, during the Meredith March where he famously called for Black Power.

Resources

• The Black Joy Parade.
• The Black Joy Project.
• The Museum of Black Joy.
• Adreinne Waheed: Black Joy & Resistance photos.

Books

Valerie Boyd (editor): Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic.

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts: Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration.

Lindsey Stewart: The Politics of Black Joy: Zora Neale Hurston and Neo-Abolitionism.

Adreinne Waheed: Black Joy and Resistance.

See here and here for lists of books that celebrate Black joy.

Articles

Getting started: check out the suggested articles at the Black Joy Project, then continue here!

ACLU: Three Artists Explain & Visualize What Black Joy Means to Them.

Veronica Chambers:Toni Morrison Dancing: Photos of the Author at Work and Play: Irresistible vitality and intensity were cornerstones of her extraordinary life.

Ayesha Hardison & Randal Maurice Jelks: Zora Neale Hurston’s Radical Black Love.

Joyann Jeffrey: 10 exceptional people who are using Black joy as a form of resistance: Black joy is about “manifesting the joy that you need, deserve, or desire,” says Kleaver Cruz of The Black Joy Project.

Rachel Jones: What is Black joy? See it through the eyes of these groundbreaking artists. Black creators chronicle the experiences that nourish their communities.

Chanté Joseph: What Black Joy Means – And Why It’s More Important Than Ever: Where society has told Black people to “be quiet”, or that we’re “too loud”, revelling in joy is an act of resistance. As our feeds become even more inundated with images of trauma, joy can help us heal.

Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts:

• Black Joy Is About Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration. (Interview).
• Black Joy in Pursuit of Racial Justice: What does it mean to give ourselves permission to experience joy even when grief and rage are present?

Brence Pernell: The right to joy and pleasure is a crucial element of racial justice: Addressing systemic racism and state violence is not enough.

Neda Ulaby: At The ‘Museum Of Black Joy,’ It’s The Everyday Moments That Go On Display.

Images of Black Joy in U.S. History

James Baldwin, with CORE member Doris Jean Castle in New Orleans. Photo by movement photographer Steve Schapiro.

Toni Morrison at a disco party.

Fannie Lou Hamer, with her husband Pap.

Kwame Ture/Stokely Carmichael playing with a child, during the Meredith March where he famously called for Black Power.

Martin and Coretta…

Bernice King (follow at @BerniceKing) paying homage to a classic photo of her father.

Toni Morrison, June Jordan, Audrey Edwards, Alice Walker, Nana Maynard, Ntzoke Shange, and Vertamae Grosvenor at the first meeting of their writing group, “The Sisterhood.” (part of June Jordan Papers, Harvard Schlesinger Library). Bessie Smith’s photo is hanging on the wall.

Amiri Baraka and Maya Angelou dancing, Photo by Chester Higgins, Jr.: “At the conclusion of the program, filled with poetry readings and accolades for Langston Hughes, a jazz combo livened the tempo. As I watched, Amiri Baraka asked Maya Angelou to dance and walked her to the “I’ve Known Rivers” Cosmogram — the focal point of the celebration, newly set into the floor over the ashes of Langston Hughes. As the two poets danced, the energy of the crowd focused on them. The room came alive…”

Belafonte & King…

Malcolm

Image: From Jarvis R. Givens’ Black Rebellion and the Political Imaginations of African American Teachers.

Books: Historical

James D. Anderson: The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935.

Kabria Baumgartner: In Pursuit of Knowledge: Black Women and Educational Activism in Antebellum America.

John Frederick Bell: Degrees of Equality: Abolitionist Colleges and the Politics of Race.

Dionne Danns: Desegregating Chicago’s Public Schools: Policy Implementation, Politics, and Protest, 1965–1985.

Dionne Danns, Michelle A. Purdy, & Christopher M. Span (editors): Using Past as Prologue: Contemporary Perspectives on African American Educational History.

Jack Dougherty: More Than One Struggle: The Evolution of Black School Reform in Milwaukee.

W.E.B. Du Bois: The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906 – 1960.

Eddie R. Cole: The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom.

Ansley T. Erickson & Ernest Morrell (editors): Educating Harlem: A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community.

Stephanie Y. Evans: Black Women in the Ivory Tower, 1850-1954: An Intellectual History.

Jarvis R. Givens: Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching.

Jon Hale: The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement.

Karen Johnson: Uplifting the women and the race : the educational philosophies and social activism of Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs.

Tondra L. Loder-Jackson: Schoolhouse Activists: African American Educators and the Long Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.

Audrey McCluskey: A Forgotten Sisterhood: Pioneering Black Women Educators and Activists in the Jim Crow South.

Hilary J. Moss: Schooling Citizens: The Struggle for African American Education in Antebellum America.

Charles M. Payne & Carol Sills Strickland (editors): Teach Freedom: Education for Liberation in the African-American Tradition.

Michelle A. Purdy: Transforming the Elite: Black Students and the Desegregation of Private Schools.

Russell Rickford: We Are an African People: Independent Education, Black Power, and the Radical Imagination.

Elizabeth Todd-Breland: A Political Education: Black Politics and Education Reform in Chicago since the 1960s.

Crystal R. Sanders: A Chance for Change: Head Start and Mississippi’s Black Freedom Struggle.

Vanessa Siddle Walker:

• The Lost Education of Horace Tate: Uncovering the Hidden Heroes Who Fought for Justice in Schools.
• Their Highest Potential: An African American School Community in the Segregated South.
• Hello Professor: A Black Principal and Professional Leadership in the Segregated South.

Heather Andrea Williams: Self-Taught: African American Education in Slavery and Freedom.

Carter G. Woodson: The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Books: Contemporary

Christopher P. Chatmon, Jarvis R. Givens, & Na’ilah Suad Nasir (editors): “We Dare Say Love”: Supporting Achievement in the Educational Life of Black Boys.

Venus E. Evans-Winters: Teaching Black Girls: Resiliency in Urban Classrooms.

Bettina Love & Venus E. Evans-Winters: Black Feminism in Education: Black Women Speak Back, Up, and Out.

Jesse Hagopian & Denisha Jones (editors): Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice.

Jesse Hagopian & Dyan Watson (editors): Teaching for Black Lives.

Gloria Ladson-Billings: The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children.

Keisha Lindsay: In a Classroom of Their Own: The Intersection of Race and Feminist Politics in All-Black Male Schools.

Bettina Love: We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom.

Monique W. Morris: Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls.

Freeden Blume Oeur: Black Boys Apart: Racial Uplift and Respectability in All-Male Public Schools.

Beverly Daniel Tatum:

• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.
• Can We Talk about Race?: And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation.

Vajra M. Watson: Transformative Schooling: Towards Racial Equity in Education.

Articles

Derrick P. Alridge: On Education and African American Intellectual History.

H. Samy Alim & Django Paris: Centering and Sustaining Us through Education.

Gloria Ashaolu: The Countercurriculum of Black Education.

Toni Cade Bambara: Realizing the Dream of a Black University.

Kabria Baumgartner (interviewed): In Pursuit of Knowledge: A New Book about Black Women’s Educational Activism.

Richard D. Benson II:

• “Ain’t No Rest for the Weary:” Continuing the Historical Legacy of Educational Praxis and Advocacy for Black Youth.
• Black Power, Education, and the History of the Peoples College.

Ronald E. Butchart: “Outthinking and Outflanking the Owners of the World”: A Historiography of the African American Struggle for Education.

Andrene Castro: The Activist Work of K-12 Educators: Then and Now.

Joanne Gavin: Answers to Jon Hale’s Freedom School Questionnaire, 2008.

Jarvis R. Givens:

• Corporate Imperialism vs. Black (Educational) Liberation.
• Black Rebellion and the Political Imaginations of African American Teachers.
• What’s Missing From the Discourse About Anti-racist Teaching: Black educators have always known that their students are living in an anti-Black world and that their teaching must be set against the very order of that world.

Reena Goldthree: Prefiguring the African American “Postcolony”: Black Independent Schools and the Quest for Liberation.

Lindsey E. Jones: Why Black Teachers Matter.

Audre Lorde: “I Teach Myself In Outline,” Notes, Journals, Syllabi.

Raven Moses: Charter Schools and the Black Independent School Movement.

Nadrea Njoku: The Education of Black Boys.

Organization of American Historians: History for Black Lives.

Christopher F. Petrella: Resurrecting the Radical Pedagogy of the Black Panther Party.

Lavelle Porter: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Elizabeth Todd-Breland: How Karen Lewis’ own story follows the arc of Chicago’s contentious education history.

Crystal R. Sanders: Unita Blackwell’s Legacy of Educational Activism Lives On.

Vanessa Siddle Walker: Telling the untold stories of school integration: An interview with Vanessa Siddle Walker.

Dyan Watson:

• Doing Race Talk with Teachers: How to stay in the conversation.
• Black Boys in White Spaces: One Mom’s Reflection.
• A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son.
• See more from Dyan Watson here.

Heather Andrea Williams: The Oppressor’s Bookshelf: As formerly enslaved Americans battled to become literate, the only books available to them were written by white supremacists and condescending abolitionists.

Image is from the article: The Great Dismal Swamp was a refuge for the enslaved. Their descendants want to preserve it.

Programs Connecting Black Communities to Nature

• #BlackBirdersWeek
• Programs on Black Gardening.
• Resources on the Black Farming Movement.
• Black Girls Hike. (See more hiking groups for Black women here.)
• Black Girls Run.
• Black Kids Swim
• The Black Outdoors.
• Blackpackers.
• Diversity Outdoors.
• Melanin Base Camp: Diversity in the Outdoors.
• Outdoor Afro.
• Soul Trak Outdoors.
• Vibe Tribe Adventures.

Books

Kevin Dawson: Undercurrents of Power : Aquatic Culture in the African diaspora.

Alison Hawthorne Deming & Lauret E. Savoy (editors): The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World.

Camille T. Dungy: Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry.

Carolyn Finney: Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors.

Dianne D. Glave: Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage.

J. Drew Lanham: The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature.

Brian McCammack: Landscapes of Hope: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago.

Paul Outka: Race and Nature from Transcendentalism to the Harlem Renaissance.

Lauret E. Savoy: Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape.

Articles: Historical

C.N.E. Corbin: The Rise of Green Spaces in Inner Cities.

Liesel Hamilton: At Francis Beidler Forest, Stories of the Formerly Enslaved Mingle with Nature: On Maroons Cultural Heritage Day, Audubon South Carolina transported visitors into the sanctuary’s past—when it was a refuge for runaways.

Celeste Henery:

• Contemplating Black Ecologies.
• Fire Suppression, the Carceral State, and Black Ecological Knowledge.
• Contemplating the Black Atlantic.
• Race and the Paradoxes of the Night.
• Black Swimmers and Diasporic Understandings of Water.

Justin Hosbey & J. T. Roane: Mapping Black Ecologies.

Allison Keyes: Harriet Tubman, an Unsung Naturalist, Used Owl Calls as a Signal on the Underground Railroad: The famed conductor traveled at night, employing deep knowledge of the region’s environment and wildlife to communicate, navigate, and survive.

Brian McCammack: The Great Migration and Black Environmental History (interview by J. T. Roane.)

Priscilla McCutcheon: Prophetic Black Ecologies: Liberatory Agriculture on Beulah Land Farms.

Roshad Demetrie Meeks: The Bond of Live Things Everywhere: What Black Nature Might Look Like.

Warren Milteer: Marronage and the Great Dismal Swamp.

James Padilioni Jr.:Cosmic Literacies and Black Fugitivity.

Tyler Parry:

• The Role of Water in African American History.
• A Meditation on Natural Light and the Use of Fire in United States Slavery.

Malini Ranganathan: The Environment as Freedom: A Decolonial Reimagining.

J. T. Roane:

• Tornado Groan: On Black (Blues) Ecologies.
• Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora.

Corryn Wetzel: Meet Charles Young, the First Black National Park Superintendent: A military leader and conservationist, Young made history at a time when the achievements of Black Americans were often erased from the record.

Julie West: North Star to Freedom: Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park.

Teona Williams: Nature and the Great Migration in Chicago.

Articles: Contemporary

Teresa Baker: Teresa Baker, Activist and Hiker, on Why Kids Are the Future of Our Public Lands: Instagram feeds and internships are encouraging young people of color to join the environmental movement. But we can do more.

Code Switch: Meet Alexis Nikole Nelson, The Wildly Popular ‘Black Forager’.

Carolyn Finney: Who Gets Left Out of the ‘Great Outdoors’ Story? You’ve heard of Davy Crockett. Now meet Lancelot Jones, Sylvia Stark and other Black outdoors pioneers who can redefine our notion of the natural world.

Meagan Flynn: The Great Dismal Swamp was a refuge for the enslaved. Their descendants want to preserve it.

Fushcia Hoover: A Black Girl’s Guide To Foraging.

Naima Green: These Are the Faces of Tranquility: A photographer aims to interrupt the predominant narratives about people of color surrounded by urban decay.

Cynthia Greenlee: How Black Foragers Find Freedom in the Natural World: Foraging has opened their eyes not just to the possibilities of new food sources, but to the legacy of land separation.

Tiya Miles: Black Bodies, Green Spaces: Why is the image of an environmentally conscious African-American still hard for us to picture?

Jillian Mock: The National Parks Have a Diversity Problem. This Couple Has Been Working for 20 Years to Fix It.

National Audubon Society: scroll down for roundup of articles on Black birders.

The New York Times:

• The Black Park Rangers Bringing History to Life.
• Tell Us What You Love About the Outdoors for Our Black History Series: For our series exploring pivotal moments and transformative figures in Black history, we want to hear stories about when you found your passion for nature.
• Black Gardeners Find Refuge in the Soil: Gardening boomed during the pandemic. Six Black writers share how it has helped them re-establish, and reimagine, a connection to cultivation and the land.

Sean O’Hagan: Photographer Donavon Smallwood: ‘What’s it like to be a black person in nature?’

Ebony Rosemond: This stereotype [that Black people don’t swim] is killing black children.

Purbita Saha: Do Communities of Color Really Feel Disconnected From Nature? Working with college STEM students, Dorceta Taylor debunks the cultural stereotypes that dominate diversity discussions.

Chandra Thomas Whitfield: Black Women’s Groups Find Health And Healing On Hikes, But Sometimes Racism, Too.

Image: Baldwin & Co., New Orleans.

Search for your nearest Black-owned bookstore here and here.

Historical

The Afro-American: 50-year-old bookstore to close in Harlem.

Joshua Clark Davis:

• Civil Rights Activist, Poet, Bookseller: An Interview with Charlie Cobb. (See full transcript here.)
• Black-Owned Bookstores: Anchors of the Black Power Movement.
• Una Mulzac, Black Women Booksellers, and Pan-Africanism.
• Black Bookstores and the Black Power Movement: An Interview with Paul Coates.
• The FBI’s War on Black-Owned Bookstores: At the height of the Black Power movement, the Bureau focused on the unlikeliest of public enemies: black independent booksellers.

Drum and Spear Bookstore Site, African American Heritage Trail.

C. Gerald Fraser: Lewis Michaux, 92, Dies; Ran Bookstore in Harlem.

Ashawnta Jackson:

• The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom: Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.
• Freedom Libraries and the Fight for Library Equity: Freedom libraries in the south provided Black residents with access to spaces and books, whether in church basements or private homes.

Douglas Martin: Una Mulzac, Bookseller With Passion for Black Politics, Dies at 88.

SNCC Digital Gateway: 1968: Drum and Spear Books founded.

Wikipedia:

• African-American bookstores.
• Présence Africaine.
• Young’s Book Exchange.

David Woo: Marcus Books, the Nation’s Oldest Black Bookstore.

Contemporary

AALBC: Only 54 Black Owned Bookstores Remain in America.

Tom Ambrose: Dismay as UK’s first specialist black bookshop forced to close: New Beacon Books in north London announces it will close and move online only after more than 55 years.

Tim Arango & Matt Stevens: California Today: A Cherished Black Bookstore in a Changing South L.A.

Kevin Armstrong: ‘We Always Rise.’ A Black-Owned Bookstore Navigates the Pandemic. Source of Knowledge has been a Newark mainstay for decades. It survived the past year thanks to the generosity of its customers and an owner who provides more than just books.

Black Classic Press.

Hope Corrigan: New Orleans is looking toward a hopeful future. A new bookstore is lighting the way. The city’s hospitality industry has been decimated by the pandemic, but Baldwin & Co. aims to create a space in which to come together again.

Elizabeth A. Harris: Overwhelmed With Orders, Some Black-Owned Bookstores Ask for Patience: “We are running as fast as we can,” a Boston shop told customers who are clamoring for antiracism books that are soaring in popularity but hard to keep in stock.

Marissa J. Lang: Bookstores by and for people of color are finding their industry niche.

Jessica Murray: Black-owned bookshops call for more diversity in UK publishing: Booksellers say interest in black authors has surged since George Floyd’s death and BLM protests.

The New York Times: ‘A Conflicted Cultural Force’: What It’s Like to Be Black in Publishing: An author, literary agent, marketer, publicist, editors and booksellers talk about how race affects their careers — and the books you read.

Kim Severson: Where Books Meet Black Mecca: A bookstore in Atlanta where half of the books aren’t for sale?

André Wheeler:‘Economic duress is nothing new’: Can America’s oldest black bookstore survive the pandemic?

David Woo: Marcus Books, the Nation’s Oldest Black Bookstore.

Image: Linotype Operators of the Chicago Defender, 1941 (Wikimedia Commons).

Archives & Collections

The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service. See also other collections of BPP newspapers, here and here.

Black Press Research Collective.

Archive of The Crisis.

Archive of Freedom’s Journal.

Archive of The Messenger.

National Urban League publications, 1930-1960.

One-year anniversary issue of The North Star.

Unity and Struggle. (Published by the Congress of African People, led by Amiri Baraka.)

Books

Thomas Aiello:

• The Grapevine of the Black South: The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation before the Civil Rights Movement.
• The Life and Times of Louis Lomax: The Art of Deliberate Disunity.

Simeon Booker: Shocking the Conscience: A Reporter’s Account of the Civil Rights Movement.

Fred Carroll: Race News: Black Journalists and the Fight for Racial Justice in the Twentieth Century.

Alice Dunnigan: Alone atop the Hill: The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan, Pioneer of the National Black Press.

Benjamin Fagan: The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation.

Brigitte Fielder: Against a Sharp White Background: Infrastructures of African American Print.

Kathy Roberts Forde & Alex Lichtenstein: Journalism and Jim Crow: White Supremacy and the Black Struggle for a New America.

Kim Gallon: Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press.

Eric Gardner: Black Print Unbound: The Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture.

Jerry Gershenhorn: Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle.

Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres: News For All The People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media.

D’Weston Haywood: Let Us Make Men: The Twentieth-Century Black Press and a Manly Vision for Racial Advancement.

Gerald Horne: The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett’s Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox.

Amy Helene Kirschke: Art in Crisis: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Struggle for African American Identity and Memory.

Kimberley Mangun: Editor Emory O. Jackson, the Birmingham World, and the Fight for Civil Rights in Alabama, 1940-1975.

James McGrath Morris: Eye On the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press.

Ethan Michaeli: The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America.

Robert J. Norrell: Alex Haley: And the Books That Changed a Nation.

Carole A. Parks (editor): Nommo: A Literary Legacy of Black Chicago (1967-1987) An OBAC Anthology.

Gene Roberts: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.

Christopher M. Tinson: Radical Intellect: Liberator Magazine and Black Activism in the 1960s.

Patrick S. Washburn: The African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom.

E. James West: Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America.

Sondra Kathryn Wilson (editor):

• The Crisis Reader: Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the N.A.A.C.P.’s Crisis Magazine.
• The Opportunity Reader: Stories, Poetry, and Essays from the Urban League’s Opportunity Magazine.
• The Messenger Reader: Stories, Poetry, and Essays from The Messenger Magazine.

Articles

Bala James Baptiste: Radio Journalism and Civil Rights.

Black Perspectives: Roundup of articles on The Liberator magazine.

Keisha N. Blain: Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A New Book on A North Carolina Journalist and Activist.

Siobhan Carter-David: Essence as Archive on the Occasion of its Golden Anniversary.

Joshua Clark Davis: On the Life and Legacy of Black Journalist Louis Lomax.

Black Past:

• Freedomways: (1961-1985).
• Global African History Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals.
• Chicago Defender.
• The Messenger.

Adam Lee Cilli: The Pittsburgh Courier’s Discursive Power, 1910-1940.

Kim Gallon: The Black Press and Disinformation on Facebook: The Black Press historically has countered disinformation that targeted Black voters, but now it is financially connected to Facebook itself.

Paul Hébert: Getting the Word Out: The Circulation of Black Power Newspapers.

Ibram X. Kendi:

• Radical Intellect: A New Book on Liberator Magazine.
• The Defender: A New Book on Chicago’s Legendary Black Newspaper.

NAACP: History of “The Crisis.”

Jessica Parr: Ownership and Access: The Ebony and Jet Magazines Archive.

Kevin C. Quin: Black Periodicals and the Politics of Racial Uplift.

Janell Ross: The Key Role a Local Newspaper Played in the Trial Over Ahmaud Arbery’s Murder.

Jacinta R. Saffold: Celebrating 50 Years of Essence as a Black Women’s Archive.

Chernoh Sesay Jr.: Museums, Newspapers, and African American Archives.

Thomas Smith: The Digital Archives of the Oldest Black Newspaper in America Show a Long Struggle for Justice.

Christopher Tinson:

• Liberator Magazine and Black Activism: An Author’s Response.
• Remembering the Black Radical Press.
• “Held in Trust by History:” The Intellectual Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr.

Malea Walker: Ida B. Wells and the Activism of Investigative Journalism.

E. James West:

• Queering the Black Press: Remembering BLK Magazine.
• Protest, Property, and the Black Press.

The Zinn Education Project: Dec. 3, 1847: North Star Newspaper Launched.

Image: from the cover of Jarvis R. Givens’ Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching.

Getting started: read Givens’ above-mentioned book, as well as his articles below. Follow leading historians of Black history here. Keep up to date with Black history by following the African American Intellectual Historical Society.  

Books

Pero Gaglo Dagbovie:

• The Early Black History Movement, Carter G. Woodson, and Lorenzo Johnston Greene.
• Reclaiming the Black Past: The Use and Misuse of African American History in the 21st Century.

Jarvis R. Givens: Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching.

Jacqueline Goggin: Carter G. Woodson: A Life in Black History.

Manning Marable: Living Black History: How Reimagining the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future.

Carter G. Woodson: The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Selected Articles

Brandon Byrd: Black History Month Bibliography.

Veronica Chambers: How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now.

Pero Gaglo Dagbovie: Reclaiming the Black Past: A New Book on the Use and Misuse of African American History. (Interview with Dagbovie by Keisha Blain.)

W.E.B. Du Bois: Negro History Week.

Tiffany Florvil: Rethinking Black History Month in Germany.

Jarvis R. Givens:

• Fugitive Pedagogy: The Longer Roots of Antiracist Teaching.
• The Political Origins of Black History Month.
• The Important Political History of Black History Month: Uncovering the robust intellectual tradition among African American schoolteachers.

Stephen G. Hall:

• History As A Communal Act: The History of Black History Month.
• On Black History Month & Black Historical Writing: An Interview with Stephen G. Hall.

Annette Joseph-Gabriel: An Internationalist Vision of Black History Month.

Phillip Luke Sinitiere: W. E. B. Du Bois and Black History Month.

Noelle Trent: Black History Month, A Reflection and Defense.

Olivia B. Waxman: How Black Lives Matter Is Changing What Students Learn During Black History Month.

E. James West: The Radical and Transnational Roots of Black History Month in Britain.

Programs & Initiatives

Colin Kaepernick: Know Your Rights Camp.

More Than A Vote: We are Black athletes and artists working together to fight systemic racism, and educate, energize, and protect our community.

Etan Thomas: Athletes and Activism.

Podcasts

Burn It All Down – a feminist sports podcast.

Code Switch:

• When It Comes to Race And Sports, Who Owns An Athlete’s Opinions?
• Balls and Strikes.
• Muhammad Ali And Malcolm X: A Broken Friendship, An Enduring Legacy.

Into America: Beyond the Fist: Activism at the Games.

Throughline: On The Shoulders Of Giants.

Dave Zirin: Edge of Sports Podcast.

Books

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Black Cop’s Kid: An Essay.

Amy Bass (editor): In the Game: Race, Identity, and Sports in the Twentieth Century.

Michael Bennett & Dave Zirin: Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.

Drew D. Brown: Sports in African American Life: Essays on History and Culture.

Howard Bryant: The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism.

John Carlos & Dave Zirin: The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.

Harry Edwards: The Revolt of the Black Athlete: 50th Anniversary Edition.

Craig Hodges: Long Shot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter.

Colin Kaepernick (editor): Abolition for the People: The Movement for a Future without Policing & Prisons.

David J. Leonard: Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field.

David J. Leonard & C. Richard King (editors): Commodified and Criminalized: New Racism and African Americans in Contemporary Sports.

Louis Moore:

• I Fight for a Living: Boxing and the Battle for Black Manhood, 1880-1915.
• We Will Win the Day: The Civil Rights Movement, the Black Athlete, and the Quest for Equality.

Randy Roberts: Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.

Jackie Robinson: I Never Had It Made: An Autobiography of Jackie Robinson.

Theresa Runstedtler: Jack Johnson, Rebel Sojourner: Boxing in the Shadow of the Global Color Line.

Etan Thomas: We Matter: Athletes and Activism.

John Thompson, with Jesse Washington: I Came As a Shadow: An Autobiography.

Derrick E. White: Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football.

Wyomia Tyus & Elizabeth Terzakis: Tigerbelle: The Wyomia Tyus Story.

Dave Zirin:

• The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.
• What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States.
• A People’s History of Sports in the United States: 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play.
• Jim Brown: Last Man Standing.

Articles: Historical

African American Intellectual Historical Society: The Black Athlete in the Freedom Struggle.

Scott N. Brooks & Aram Goudsouzian: Remembering Wilma Rudolph, the “Queen of the Olympics”.

Lynn Burnett: The Exile of Jack Johnson.

Joshua Crutchfield: The History of Black College Football.

Amira Rose Davis:

• Sixty Years Ago She Refused to Stand for the Anthem: Before Colin Kaepernick kneeled, high jumper Rose Robinson defied tradition at the Pan American Games. Her resistance — and legacy — didn’t start nor end there.
• Black Women Athletes, Protest, and Politics: An Interview with Amira Rose Davis.
• Black Cheerleaders and A Long History of Protest.

W.E.B. Du Bois on Jesse Owens.

Garrett Felber: Remembering Muhammad Ali: Asiatic Black Man.

Peter Feuerherd: Jackie Robinson vs Paul Robeson: A Double Play for the Ages: In 1949, Jackie Robinson testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee against Paul Robeson.

Robert Greene II:

• Baseball and Black American Memory.
• Henry Aaron and American Memory.

Maurice Jackson: Life Lessons from Georgetown’s Basketball Coach John Thompson.

Ibram X. Kendi: On the Racist Ideas Jesse Owens Could Not Outrun.

Michael Lee: Hank Aaron fought racism the way he played: Quietly but with power.

Louis Moore:

• Black Athletes and the Civil Rights Movement.
• The NFL and a History of Black Protest.
• There Is No NFL Without Black Labor.
• Bill Bruton’s Fight for the Full Integration of Baseball.
• Black Fans, Protest, and Power.
• Black Fists, Black Pride, and the 1968 Summer Olympics.
• The Black Athlete and the Vote.

J. Paul: Sport as a Place of Violence in the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Kevon Paynter: Before the NFL Took a Knee: 4 Lesser-Known Moments of Resistance in Sports History.

Bill Pennington: COLLEGE BASKETBALL; Player’s Protest Over the Flag Divides Fans (2003).

Larry Schwartz: Owens Pierced a Myth.

Abraham Tapiwa Seda: Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa.

Shakeia Taylor: Abolitionist Catto was Black baseball pioneer.

Matthew Teutsch: Celebrating the Life and Activism of Jackie Robinson.

Derrick E. White:

• The NBA, Civil Rights, and Political Activism in Sports.
• Blood, Sweat, and Tears: A New Book on the History of Black College Football.

Articles: Contemporary

ABC News: Pro Athletes Don ‘I Can’t Breathe’ Shirts in Support of Eric Garner Protesters.

Khari Arnold: WNBA veteran Renee Montgomery fighting to increase votes and uplift HBCUs.

Des Bieler: WNBA players refuse to talk basketball in protest of fines for black warmup shirts.

Matt Bonesteel: After the NFL’s white players are called out, Eagles’ Chris Long steps up.

Taylor Branch:

• The Shame of College Sports: A leading civil-rights historian makes the case for paying college athletes—and reveals how a spate of lawsuits working their way through the courts could destroy the NCAA.
• Why Scholarships Don’t Count as Payment for College Athletes.
• Toward Basic Rights for College Athletes.

Howard Bryant:

• The reality of Black pain is breaking American sports’ status quo.
• On Race and Sports: An Interview with Howard Bryant.

Tracie Canada: Anti-Blackness and College Football.

Natasha Cloud: Your Silence Is a Knee on My Neck.

Sean Hurd: The WNBA is determined to keep Saying Her Name: How the league is using this season to raise awareness of the fact that Black women are killed by police violence, too.

Amira Rose Davis:

• No More Games: Understanding the Latest Wave of Athletic Activism.
• Black Cheerleaders and A Long History of Protest.
• Black Athletes, Anthem Protests, and the Spectacle of Patriotism.
• Why Black Women Basketball Coaches Are Thriving in the SEC.
• Black Women on Team USA Have to Play Two Games: Seven Olympians—including Gwen Berry, Keturah Orji, and Natalie Hinds—reflect on the overwhelming month before Tokyo.
• See more from Amira Rose Davis at her website.

ESPN: Heat don hoodies after teen’s death.

J.J. Gallagher: US Soccer Star Joins Kaepernick in National Anthem Protest: Rapinoe is an advocate for LGBT rights.

Justin Gomer: Vance Joseph and the State of Black Coaches in the NFL.

Colin Kaepernick: collection of articles on Medium.

Louis Moore: The NFL has officially whitewashed Colin Kaepernick’s protest: The co-opting of protests against racism has a storied history in our country.

Jermaine Scott:

• The NFL’s Denial of Black Humanity.
• The Centrality of Whiteness in Modern Sports.

Kurt Streeter: W.N.B.A. Star Maya Moore Helped Overturn His Conviction. ‘She Saved My Life.’

E. James West: Spike Lee, Nike, and Corporate Activism.

Dave Zirin: Zirin is a prolific author of activism and sports, primarily at his Edge of Sports column and at The Nation.  

Image: Gordon Parks, self-portrait.  

Photo Collections

Bob Adelman:

• Congress for Racial Equality images. (Click on links for different CORE collections, including of Freedom Rides.)
• Birmingham movement images.
• March on Washington images.
• Selma movement images. 
• Martin Luther King’s funeral.
• Poor People’s Campaign.

Sheila Pree Bright: #1960Now.

W.E.B. Du Bois: African American Photographs Assembled for 1900 Paris Exposition.

Civil Rights Movement Archive:

• Freedom Movement Photo Album. (Tons of photos in many different categories.)
• Movement Photographs of Herbert Randall.

Emory Douglas and Stephen Shames: Power to the People: The Black Panthers in Photographs by Stephen Shames and Graphics by Emory Douglas.

Bob Fitch Photography Archive: Martin Luther King Jr., 1965-1966.

Jill Freedman: Resurrection City, 1968.

The Guardian Picture Essay: Capturing the cry for change: photographers on the BLM protests.

Images of Change. Photos from George Ballis, Matt Herron, Ernest Lowe, Ivan Massar, Art Rogers, and Maria Varela.  

Steven Kasher Gallery: Selma March, 1965.

Charles Moore: Civil Rights and Beyond.

National Museum of African American History and Culture:

• Make Good the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies.
• We Return Fighting: The African American Experience in World War I.

Proclaiming Emancipation.

Steven Shames: The Black Panthers: Vintage Prints by Stephen Shames.

John H. White: The Documerica Project (1971-1977).

James Van Der Zee: Howard Greenberg Gallery Collection.

Books

Bob Adelman: Mine Eyes Have Seen.

Bob Adelman & Charles Johnson: King: A Photobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Devin Allen: A Beautiful Ghetto.

James Baldwin (author) with Steve Schapiro (photographer): The Fire Next Time.

Sheila Pree Bright: #1960Now: Photographs of Civil Rights Activists and Black Lives Matter Protests.

Richard Cahan & Michael Williams: Chicago Exposed: Defining Moments From the Chicago Sun-Times Photo Archive.

Dana Canedy, Damien Cave, Darcy Eveleigh, & Rachel L. Swarns: Unseen: Unpublished Black History from the New York Times Photo Archives.

Julian Cox, Rebekah Jacob, & Monica Karales: Controversy and Hope: The Civil Rights Photographs of James Karales.

Bruce Davidson, John Lewis, & Deborah Willis: Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965.

Roy DeCarava: Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective.

Sonny DuBose & Cecil Williams: Orangeburg 1968: A Place and Time Remembered.

Eric Etheridge: Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders.

Matthew Fox-Amato: Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America.

Leonard Freed:

• This Is the Day: The March on Washington.
• Black in White America.

Jill Freedman (photographer) & Stephen Shames (editor): Resurrection City, 1968.

Aston Gonzalez: Visualizing Equality: African American Rights and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century.

Middleton A. Harris & Toni Morrison: The Black Book.

Matt Herron: Mississippi Eyes: The Story and Photography of the Southern Documentary Project.

Kinshasha Holman Conwill & Paul Gardullo: Make Good the Promises: Reclaiming Reconstruction and Its Legacies.

Steven Kasher: The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68.

Leslie G. Kelen: This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement.

Barbara Krauthamer & Deborah Willis: Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery.

 Dorothea Lange, Richard Cahan, & Michael Williams: River of Blood: American Slavery from the People Who Lived It: Interviews & Photographs of Formerly Enslaved African Americans.

Preston Lauterbach: Bluff City: The Secret Life of Photographer Ernest Withers.

Danny Lyon: Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement by Danny Lyon.

Charles Moore & Michael S. Durham: Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore.

NAACP & The Crisis: NAACP: Celebrating a Century 100 Years in Pictures.

National Museum of African American History and Culture: Through the African American Lens: Double Exposure.

Gordon Parks:

• Gordon Parks: The New Tide: Early Work 1940–1950.
• Gordon Parks: Muhammad Ali.
• Gordon Parks: Segregation Story.
• Invisible Man: Gordon Parks and Ralph Ellison in Harlem.

Marc Perrusquia: A Spy in Canaan: How the FBI Used a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement.

Herbert Randall: Faces of Freedom Summer.

Bobby Seale & Stephen Shames: Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers.

Stephen Shames & Charles E. Jones: The Black Panthers – Photographs by Stephen Shames.

Shawn Michelle Smith:

• Photography on the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and Visual Culture.
• Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography.

Shawn Michelle Smith & Maurice O. Wallace (editors): Pictures and Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity.

Mark Speltz: North of Dixie: Civil Rights Photography Beyond the South.

Ron Wilkins: Crook’s Lens; A Photographic Journey Through the Black Liberation Struggle.

Deborah Willis: The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship.

Ernest C. Withers, Richard Cahan, & Michael Williams: Revolution in Black and White: Photographs of the Civil Rights Era by Ernest Withers.

Articles

BBC News: Moneta Sleet: The great black photographer you’ve never heard of.

Alex Begin: Capturing the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Katharina Fackler: Rosa Parks and the Image of Respectability.

Bobby Fletcher: See this movement photographer’s bio and further links at his SNCC profile.

Ibram X. Kendi: North of Dixie: A New Book on Civil Rights Photography Beyond the South.

Nyasha Laing: How Black Photographers Are Shaping the Movement for Black Lives.

Amanda Martin-Hardin: ‘Sharp and Subversive’ Scenes of Integrated 1940s Summer Camps: Gordon Parks’s Photos of Black and White Kids at Play Resisted Segregation in Nature and Beyond by Presenting a Vision of America as He Hoped It Could Be.

Allison Meier: Why Frederick Douglass Was the Most Photographed 19th-Century American: In a lifelong battle against racist imagery, Frederick Douglass had over 160 portraits taken, which he hoped would create a public acknowledgment of his humanity.

Mary Niall Mitchell:

• The Visual Documentation of Racist Violence in America.
• The History of African American Visual Culture.

Sean Murphy: Pulitzer Prize Photography and the African-American Experience: For Black History Month, look back at the work of Pulitzer-winning African-American photojournalists, and prize-winning images documenting pivotal moments in race relations.

NPR: As Black Photographers Document Protests, They Tell Their ‘Own History In Real Time’.

David Silkenat: “A Typical Negro”: Gordon, Peter, Vincent Colyer, and the Story behind Slavery’s Most Famous Photograph.

Matthew Teutsch: Documenting Racial Violence Through Photography.

Deborah Vankin: Photographer Gordon Parks inspired a new generation of artists. Here are some of their stories.

Maria Varela: See this movement photographer’s bio and further links at her SNCC and Civil Rights Movement Veterans profiles, as well as this oral history interview. 

Vermont Public Radio: ‘I’m The Conduit’: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photojournalist John White On His Life’s Work.

Vice: The Story Behind the Black Lives Matter Photo Seen Around the World: Jonathan Bachman’s photo of protester Ieshia Evans being arrested in Baton Rouge has become instantly iconic.

Tamio Wakayama: See this movement photographer’s SNCC profile and commemoration, as well as his bio at East Wind.  

E. James West: Highways, High-Rises and Food Deserts.

Wikipedia: List of photographers of the civil rights movement.

David Zax: The Scurlock Studio: Picture of Prosperity: For more than half a century the Scurlock Studio chronicled the rise of Washington’s black middle class.

Image: Harlem Renaissance author Claude McKay, addressing the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, Moscow, 1922. Separate resource pages on major figures such as McKay are forthcoming. To be notified of new releases, join the Patreon or follow on Facebook.

Consider supporting your nearest Black-owned bookstore when ordering any of the titles below. You can find your nearest Black-owned bookstore here.

Hakim Adi: Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939.

B.D. Amis: B.D. Amis: African American Radical: A Short Anthology of Writings and Speeches.

Gregg Andrews: Thyra J. Edwards: Black Activist in the Global Freedom Struggle.

Kate Baldwin: Beyond the Color Line and the Iron Curtain: Reading Encounters between Black and Red, 1922–1963.

Fitzroy Baptiste & Rupert Lewis (editors): Caribbean Reasonings: George Padmore, Pan-African Revolutionary.

David Beasley: A Life in Red: A Story of Forbidden Love, The Great Depression, and the Communist Fight for a Black Nation in the Deep South.

Maria De Los Reyes Castillo Bueno: Reyita: The Life of a Black Cuban Woman in the Twentieth Century.

Joy Gleason Carew: Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise.

Carole Boyce Davies: Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones.

Robeson Taj Frazier: The East Is Black: Cold War China in the Black Radical Imagination.

Dayo F. Gore: Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the Cold War.

Harry Haywood: Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist.

Christian Høgsbjerg: C. L. R. James in Imperial Britain.

Gary Edward Holcomb: Claude McKay, Code Name Sasha: Queer Black Marxism and the Harlem Renaissance.

Gerald Horne:

• Black Revolutionary: William Patterson & the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle.
• Black Liberation / Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party.

Hosea Hudson & Nell Irvin Painter: The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: The Life and Times of a Black Radical.

Langston Hughes: I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: Blacks and Reds: Race and Class in Conflict, 1919-1990.

C.L.R. James: A History of Pan-African Revolt.

Winston James: Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik, 1889-1923.

Howard Eugene Johnson: A Dancer in the Revolution: Stretch Johnson, Harlem Communist at the Cotton Club.

Yasuhiro Katagiri: Black Freedom, White Resistance, and Red Menace: Civil Rights and Anticommunism in the Jim Crow South.

Robin D.G. Kelley:

• Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists during the Great Depression.
• Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.

Clarence Lang & Robbie Lieberman: Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: Another Side of the Story.

Patrice Lumumba: May our People Triumph: Poem, Speeches & Interviews.

Minkah Makalani: In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism from Harlem to London, 1917-1939.

William Maxwell: New Negro, Old Left: African-American Writing and Communism between the Wars.

Erik S. McDuffie: Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism.

Rosemari Mealy: Fidel & Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting.

Karen Y. Morrison: Cuba’s Racial Crucible: The Sexual Economy of Social Identities, 1750-2000.

Mark Naison: Communists in Harlem during the Depression.

Cedric Robinson: Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition.  

Robert Robinson: Black on Red: My 44 Years Inside the Soviet Union.

James Edward Smethurst: The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946.

Homer Smith: Black Man in Red Russia: A Memoir.

Mark Soloman: The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917-1936: Communists and African Americans, 1917-36.

Mary Stanton: Red, Black, White: The Alabama Communist Party, 1930–1950.

Margaret Stevens: Red International and Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919-1939.

Mary Helen Washington: The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s.

James Zeigler: Red Scare Racism and Cold War Black Radicalism.