General History

An Escaped Slave who Fought for the Union and Whose Wartime Heroism was Finally Recognized with the Nation's Highest Honor for Military ValorIn 1862, Andrew "Andy" Jackson Smith, son of a white landowner and enslaved woman, es­caped to Union troops...

In the spring of 1969, hundreds of workers, all Black and mostly female, went on strike at Medical College Hospital and Charleston County Hospital to protest racial discrimination, low wages, and the marginalization of their dignity. The movement began...

Born to a formerly enslaved mother and a white planter father, P. B. S. Pinchback (1837-1921) became the first African American governor in the United States. His tenure as governor of Louisiana was brief--a mere thirty-five days--but he remains one of...

In the twentieth century, African Americans not only helped make popular music the soundtrack of the American experience, they advanced American music as one of the preeminent shapers of the world's popular culture. Vast numbers of black American...

A tale of revolt aboard a nineteenth-century slave ship and the story of the slaves' heroic leader, Madison Washington.

This is the story of the drive to free the American South from the shackles of legally sanctioned racial segregation. In a lively and compact narrative, John Salmond sets the scene with the first stirrings of revolt prompted by the New Deal and the...

The first systematic Marxist account of the capitalist character of Atlantic slavery. Karl Marx's writings on enslavement and labor have fallen out of favor among historians, but David McNally injects new life into them. Slavery and Capitalism gives the...

Relive the tumultuous preseason before Robinson broke the color barrier"An in-depth look at a pivotal time in baseball history."--Lou Hernández, author of Baseball's Great Hispanic Pitchers "Set against the backdrop of Old Havana, Cesar Brioso has given...

This book by Miguel De La Torre offers a fascinating guide to the history, beliefs, rituals, and culture of Santería -- a religious tradition that, despite persecution, suppression, and its own secretive nature, has close to a million adherents in the...