By Manning Marable and Leith Mullings (Editors). This anthology of black writers traces the evolution of African-American perspectives throughout American history, from the early years of slavery to the end of the 20th century. The essays, manifestos, interviews, and documents assembled here, contextualized with critical commentaries from Marable and Mullings, introduce the reader to the character and important controversies of each period of black history. The selections represent a broad spectrum of ideology. Conservative, radical, nationalistic, and integrationist approaches can be found in almost every period, yet there have been striking shifts in the evolution of social thought and activism. The editors judiciously illustrate how both continuity and change affected the African-American community in terms of its internal divisions, class structure, migration, social problems, leadership, and protest movements. They also show how gender, spirituality, literature, music, and connections to Africa and the Caribbean played a prominent role in black life and history. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2009), English, Paperback: 704 pages.

Publisher: About the Author

Manning Marable is M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Professor of African-American Studies and Director of the Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia University. Leith Mullings is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Contributions from Mumia Abu-Jamal, Richard Allen, Molefi Asante, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Cyril V. Briggs, Stokely Carmichael, Frederick Douglass, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Olaudah Equiano, Louis Farrakhan, Henry Highland Garnet, Fannie Lou Hamer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and many more...