Maya Angelou Resource Library: Africa/African-American

Africa and Africans keeps a watchful eye on what has happened in Africa and on what has happened in the rest of the world that shapes how people look at Africa. The world¿s perception of Africa is an entanglement of myth and reality¿both reflecting and changing with the times. This highly informative yet concise volume, written by two authors intimately familiar with Africa, presents the facts about African society¿past and present. Students wishing to explore Africa¿s historical events and rich traditions will discover that Africans want to keep what they value in their old way of life as they find themselves in an emerging global culture.

In African Societies, Lucy Mair unites the two main strands of anthropology teaching: the discussion and illustration of the various analytical concepts used by anthropologists in the study of social systems; and ethnography - the detailed study of particular societies, nowadays obtained by participant observation. All societies discussed are in sub-Saharan Africa. This 1977 book will be of great use to students of social anthropology studying ethnography. Presenting as it does brief ethnographic accounts of a wide variety of African societies, as well as exemplifications and discussions of many theoretical concepts, the book offers the reader quick and easy access to a large body of information which previously had to be mined from a large number of monographs.

Explains some traditions and customs of 26 African tribes beginning with letters from A to Z.

Where can one go to get a comprehensive and entertaining account of the most significant events, individuals and social processes of African-American history? Fear not, because "1001 Things Everyone Should Know About African-American History" is history at your fingertips-in a concise, accessible, easily-read format. Jeffrey C. Stewart, Associate Professor of History at George Mason University, takes the reader on an all-encompassing journey through the entirety of African-American history that is pithy, provocative, and encyclopedic in scope. Here are all the people, terms, ideas, events, and social processes that make African-American history such a fascinating and inspiring subject.

A collection of the best critical essays reflecting both older and newer perspectives. Will also contain an introduction by the editor (a respected scholar in the field), a chronology of the author's life, and an annotated bibliography.

this collection of essays concentrates on cultural Africanism to be found in black music, art, and religion. The essays are topically diverse, e.g., "The Case of Voodoo in New Orleans," "African Religious Retention in Florida," and "Kongo Influences on African-American Artistic Culture." Unlike other collections with this theme, this volume looks more closely at the African side of culture than at the American practice. Also in variance with the usual approach, these essays emphasize Kongo-Angolan sources of Africanisms instead of the more widely known West African cultures.

Black Picket Fencesis a stark, moving, and candid look at a section of America that is too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the black middle class. The result of living for three years in "Groveland," a black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, sociologist Mary Pattillo-McCoy has written a book that explores both the advantages and the boundaries that exist for members of the black middle class. Despite arguments that race no longer matters, Pattillo-McCoy shows a different reality, one where black and white middle classes remain separate and unequal.

Once Carl Upchurch was an elementary school dropout fighting for survival on the streets of South Philadelphia, a gang member wedded to a life of violence, a bank robber facing a future in federal penitentiaries. Now he is a respected community organizer and one of the most compelling and visionary leaders of the civil rights movement. Catapulted into the national spotlight following his organization of a summit that brought together the country's most notorious gangs. Carl Upchurch has found himself in direct conflict with other African American civil right leaders. This is his scathing critique of t he established civil rights movement and his bold manifesto for solving the critical problems facing today's urban American.

Long hair in the 60s, Afros in the early 70s, bobs in the 80s, fuschia in the 90s. Hair is one of the first attributes to catch our eye, not only because it reflects perceptions of attractiveness or unattractiveness, but also because it conveys important political, cultural, and social meanings, particularly in relation to group identity. Given that mainstream images of beauty do not privilege dark skin and tightly coiled hair, African American women's experience provides a starkly different perspective on the meaning of hair in social identity.

In this book, the author explores the history and politics of hair and beauty culture in African American communities from the nineteenth century to the 1990s.

John P. Parker is one of the few African Americans whose battle against slavery we can now turn to in his own words. He recounts dramatically how he helped fugitive slaves to cross the Ohio River from Kentucky and go north to freedom. He risked his life, hiding in coffins, diving off a steamboat with bounty hunters on his trail and his freedom to fight for the freedom of his people.

It's hard to believe that it has been 30 years since Alex Haley's groundbreaking historical novel (based on his own family's history) was first published and became a worldwide phenomenon. Millions have read the story of the young African boy named Kunte Kinte, who in the late 1700s was kidnapped from his homeland and brought to the United States as a slave. Haley follows Kunte Kinte's family line over the next seven generations, creating a moving historical novel spanning 200 years.

Profiles six civil rights leaders and draws lessons for African American leaders a generation later. They are presented as the forerunners A. Philip Randolph and Frederick D. Patterson, the negotiators Thurgood Marshall and Whitney M. Young, and the provocateurs Adam Clayton Powell and Fannie Lou Hamer. Includes a chronology and a supplement for teachers and future leaders. The vocabulary and sentence complexity are suitable for undergraduates and older.

First published in 1903, this extraordinary collection of 14 essays was a groundbreaking literary work. Grappling with the contradictions of being black and being American, W.E.B. Du Bois created a manifesto for the emerging class of African-American intellectuals.

There is a moment when every child leaves color-blindness behind & enters the world of race consciousness. At that moment, there are two roads parents, educators, & therapists can take: they can follow the status-quo, internalizing racial expectations, & become-consciously or unconsciously-part of the problem. Or, they can question stereotypes, &, actively work against racism to become part of the solution. This book provides the tools we all need to become part of the solution.