Cultural Literature

Beginning in the 1840s, black men and women heard the call to go west, migrating to California in search of gold, independence, freedom, and land to call their own. By the mid-1850s, a lively African American community had taken root in San Francisco...

See why and how Pine Bluff/Jefferson County has been one of the Arkansas Delta's most culturally-rich areas since its inception in 1829.Serving as a haven for runaway slaves during the late years of the Civil War, the Pine Bluff/Jefferson County area...

Giles County was founded on November 14, 1809, and is known as the land of milk and honey. The county is home to over 30 National Register properties, Civil War skirmish sites, a varied cultural heritage, and intersecting Trail of Tears routes (Benge's...

Ja Rule, actor, singer, songwriter, and one of the most multi-dimensional rap artists of his time, tells his compelling story--from his youth to his rise to international fame to his transformative two years in Federal prison--and reveals the man beneath...

From the fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina--a place easy to pass by on the way...

A tragedy is unfolding all around us and is receiving well overdue attention. Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy than their white peers. But Dr. Monique Rainford is working to better understand these disparities and do...

Thirty years ago in the attic of an old estate in Massachusetts, John Hanson Mitchell discovered over two thousand antique glass plate negatives. He was told that the photographs had been taken by nineteenth-century ornithologist and conservationist...

Generations of Black Life in Kennesaw and Marietta, Georgia is the first documented pictorial history of two rich and diverse black communities during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through carefully preserved vintage images and...

In what John Hope Franklin calls an essential work on race and affirmative action, Charles Ogletree, Jr., tells his personal story of growing up a Brown baby against a vivid pageant of historical characters that includes, among others, Thurgood Marshall,...

African Americans of Sanford have served in the building of this great nation since their participation in the three Seminole Wars. They were a large part of the labor force that earned Sanford the distinction of Celery Capital of the World. The...

Read the story of the Battle of Antietam from the African American perspective.The African American community around Sharpsburg, Maryland witnessed John Brown's raid, wartime skirmishes, the Battle of South Mountain, and the aftermath of the bloodiest...

Leadership matters in everything. Shared humanity is at risk of paralysis if the society lacks trustable, transparent, and accountable leadership for the well-being of the society. A nation is nothing but a perishable commodity if it lacks leadership...