A Cultural Guide to African-American Heritage in New England


Book Description

Use Novel-Ties ® study guides as your total guided reading program. Reproducible pages in chapter-by-chapter format provide you with the right questions to ask, the important issues to discuss, and the organizational aids that help students get the most out of each book they read.




Black Portsmouth


Book Description

Few people think of a rich Black heritage when they think of New England. In the pioneering book Black Portsmouth, Mark J. Sammons and Valerie Cunningham celebrate it, guiding the reader through more than three centuries of New England and Portsmouth social, political, economic, and cultural history as well as scores of personal and site-specific stories. Here, we meet such Africans as the "likely negro boys and girls from Gambia," who debarked at Portsmouth from a slave ship in 1758, and Prince Whipple, who fought in the American Revolution. We learn about their descendants, including the performer Richard Potter and John Tate of the People’s Baptist Church, who overcame the tragedies and challenges of their ancestors’ enslavement and subsequent marginalization to build communities and families, found institutions, and contribute to their city, region, state, and nation in many capacities. Individual entries speak to broader issues—the anti-slavery movement, American religion, and foodways, for example. We also learn about the extant historical sites important to Black Portsmouth—including the surprise revelation of an African burial ground in October 2003—as well as the extraordinary efforts being made to preserve remnants of the city’s early Black heritage.




Hippocrene U.S.A Guide to Black New York


Book Description

Interested in finding the soul of the Big Apple? You'll have to look further than the Empire State Building.... New York is probably America's richest city in African American history and heritage. Due to attractive rents and increased public transportation at the dawn of the century, blacks made the city the site of their largest neighborhood, Harlem. However, in New York there are many more sites outside of Harlem that espouse the significant contributions of African Americans. The Guide to Black New York seeks out famous and infamous legends, jazz joints and soul food diners scattered over the five boroughs, and African American media - radio and newspapers. It leads you to the museums, historic sites and festivals that honor the past and present work of African Americans who have contributed their minds, their labor, their music, and their art to make the city what it is today. From the pre-Revolutionary War period to the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement to the monumental election of David Dinkins as the first black mayor of the city, this guide highlights sights and sounds of a culture that has been long overlooked in history.







One Minute a Free Woman


Book Description




National Museum of African American History and Culture


Book Description

This souvenir book showcases some of the most influential and important treasures of the National Museum of African American History and Culture's collections. These include a hymn book owned by Harriet Tubman; ankle shackles used to restrain enslaved people on ships during the Middle Passage; a dress that Rosa Parks was making shortly before she was arrested; a vintage, open-cockpit Tuskegee Airmen trainer plane; Muhammad Ali's headgear; an 1835 Bill of Sale enslaving a young girl named Polly; and Chuck Berry's Cadillac. These objects tell us the full story of African American history, of triumphs and tragedies and highs and lows. This book, like the museum it represents, uses artifacts of African American history and culture as a lens into what it means to be an American.




African American Historic Burial Grounds and Gravesites of New England


Book Description

Evidence of the early history of African Americans in New England is found in the many old cemeteries and burial grounds in the region, often in hidden or largely forgotten locations. This unique work covers the burial sites of African Americans--both enslaved and free--in each of the New England states, and uncovers how they came to their final resting places. The lives of well known early African Americans are discussed, including Venture Smith and Elizabeth Freeman, as well as the lives of many ordinary individuals--military veterans, business men and women, common laborers and children. The author's examination of burial sites and grave markers reveals clues that help document the lives of black New Englanders from the 1640s to the early 1900s.




African American Connecticut


Book Description

Three hundred years of black affairs in Connecticut are examined in this book. It explains and discusses the changing racial demographics, evolving race relations and civil rights, as well as current issues and possibilities.




Official Guide to the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture


Book Description

This fully illustrated guide to the Smithsonian's newest museum takes visitors on a journey through the richness and diversity of African American culture and the history of a people whose struggles, aspirations, and achievements have shaped the nation. Opened in September 2016, the National Museum of African American History and Culture welcomes all visitors who seek to understand, remember, and celebrate this history. The guidebook provides a comprehensive tour of the museum, including its magnificent building and grounds and eleven permanent exhibition galleries dedicated to themes of history, community, and culture. Highlights from the museum's collection of artifacts and works of art are presented in full-color photographs, accompanied by evocative stories and voices that illuminate the American experience through the African American lens.




The African American Community in Rural New England


Book Description

The African American Community in Rural New England: W. E. B. Du Bois and His Boyhood Church: W. E. B. Du Bois and His Boyhood Church (formerly published in hardcover as Sewing Circles, Dime Suppers, and W. E. B. Du Bois: A History of the Clinton A. M. E. Zion Church) is a story of a small New England church's role in the national civil rights movement. Featuring more famous figures such as Du Bois, this book also tells the story of the church's lesser known members who struggled to keep it in existence, all the while fighting for their rights in a shifting social climate. The African American Community in Rural New England is the often heroic tale of a small group of African Americans who founded and have maintained their church in a small New England town for nearly 140 years. The church is the Clinton African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the town is Great Barrington, Massachusetts - the hometown of the leading African American scholar and activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois attended the church as a youth and wrote about it; these writings are one source for this history. The book gives readers a broad view of the details of the church's history and recounts the story of its growth. Du Bois plays a crucial role in the national fight for social justice, of which the church was and remains an important part.