Amid the scholars, poets, authors, and artists of the Harlem Renaissance stood an Afro-Puerto Rican man named Arturo Schomburg. His life's passion was to collect books, letters, music, and art from Africa and the African diaspora and bring to light the achievements of people of African descent. When his collection became so large that it threatened to overflow his house, he turned to the New York Public Library.

This groundbreaking and highly acclaimed work examines the two most influential African American leaders of the twentieth century. While Martin Luther King, Jr., saw America as "essentially a dream . . . as yet unfulfilled," Malcolm X viewed America as a realized nightmare. James Cone cuts through superficial assessments of King and Malcolm as polar opposites to reveal two men whose visions are complementary and moving toward convergence.

An intriguing study of artist and civil rights activist Shirley Graham Du Bois One of the most intriguing activists and artists of the twentieth century, Shirley Graham Du Bois also remains one of the least studied and understood. In Race Woman, Gerald Horne draws a revealing portrait of this controversial figure who championed the civil rights movement in America, the liberation struggles in Africa and the socialist struggles in Maoist China. Through...

"Stunning for her daring originality, the author of Negroland gives us what she calls "a temperamental autobiography," comprised of visceral, intimate fragments that fuse criticism and memoir. Margo Jefferson constructs a nervous system with pieces of different lengths and tone, conjoining arts writing (poem, song, performance) with life writing (history, psychology). The book's structure is determined by signal moments of her life, those that trouble...

In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Kwame Brathwaite used his photography to popularize the political slogan "Black Is Beautiful." This monograph--the first ever dedicated to Brathwaite's remarkable career--tells the story of a key, but under-recognized, figure of the second Harlem Renaissance. Inspired by the writings of activist and black nationalist Marcus Garvey, Brathwaite, along with his older brother, Elombe Brath, founded the African...

This encyclopedic work aims to increase the wealth of information that is currently published on African Americans and their struggle for civil rights. It builds on such works, by bringing together in one convenient volume topics and issues that may appear in many different works.

Brief biographies of twelve African American poets with examples of their best-known works, from Jupiter Hammon of the eighteenth century to today's Arna Bontemps and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Profiles the lives and work of ten African American poets: Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki R. Madhubuti, Rita Dove, Eloise Greenfield, Langston Hughes, Imamu Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Nikki Giovanni.

Chronicles events and achievements of African-Americans between the early history of slavery in the United States through the 1930s, discussing the lives of important individuals, African kingdoms, the arts, and other cultural topics. Includes a time line.