Centering Black voices and the narratives of enslaved people, this young adult history offers a thoroughly researched account with first-hand testimonies of how people in bondage were themselves a driving force behind their own emancipation. Features a new introduction by Robin D. G. Kelley, black & white illustrations and photographs, and updates throughout. "A significant contribution to American history."–Kirkus Reviews “[Breaking the Chains] will force many readers to reexamine their assumptions about American history….Young adults will be fascinated and better informed for having experienced this book.” –School Library Journal, starred review Generations of American history students have grown up believing that enslaved people accepted their lot and became attached to their enslavers, that rebellion was rare, and that liberation from slavery happened thanks to the enslavers. Celebrated historian and children’s book author, William Loren Katz offers a thoroughly researched look at the lives of enslaved people in the United States in Breaking the Chains. From their African abductions through their brave resistance to and escape from the ships and harsh plantation life to their roles in the Civil War, those given voice here show that enslaved people themselves were a driving force behind their emancipation. This compelling look at history is an educational eye-opener for history buffs of all ages, and offers clarity on one of the most turbulent periods of US history. This new paperback edition features a new introduction by historian Robin D. G. Kelley. “Katz masterfully steers the reader step by step through the astonishing forms of resistance, both active and passive. . . . powerful and authentic.” –Publishers Weekly

This is about the struggles of the African American people from being captured as slaves, their travel to America in the middle passage to the southern plantations, thru the civil rights movement to today treatment in the 21st century.

"Tells the story of the only slavery case ever adjudicated in Oregon courts - Holmes v. Ford. Drawing on the court record of this landmark case, Nokes offers an intimate account of the relationship between a slave and his master from the slave's point of view. He also explores the experiences of other slaves in early Oregon, examining attitudes toward race and revealing contradictions in the state's history. Oregon was the only free state admitted to the union with a voter-approved constitutional clause banning African Americans and, despite the prohibition against slavery, many in Oregon tolerated it, and supported politicians who were pro-slavery, including Oregon's first territorial governor"--Unedited summary from book cover.

Breaking the Chains, Forging the Nation offers a new perspective on black political life in Cuba by analyzing the time between two hallmark Cuban events, the Aponte Rebellion of 1812 and the Race War of 1912. In so doing, this anthology provides fresh insight into the ways in which Cubans practiced and understood black freedom and resistance, from the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution to the early years of the Cuban republic. Bringing together an impressive range of scholars from the field of Cuban studies, the volume examines, for the first time, the continuities between disparate forms of political struggle and racial organizing during the early years of the nineteenth century and traces them into the early decades of the twentieth. Matt Childs, Manuel Barcia, Gloria García, and Reynaldo Ortíz-Minayo explore the transformation of Cuba’s nineteenth-century sugar regime and the ways in which African-descended people responded to these new realities, while Barbara Danzie León and Matthew Pettway examine the intellectual and artistic work that captured the politics of this period. Aisha Finch, Ada Ferrer, Michele Reid-Vazquez, Jacqueline Grant, and Joseph Dorsey consider new ways to think about the categories of resistance and agency, the gendered investments of traditional resistance histories, and the continuities of struggle that erupted over the course of the mid-nineteenth century. In the final section of the book, Fannie Rushing, Aline Helg, Melina Pappademos, and Takkara Brunson delve into Cuba’s early nationhood and its fraught racial history. Isabel Hernández Campos and W. F. Santiago-Valles conclude the book with reflections on the process of history and commemoration in Cuba. Together, the contributors rethink the ways in which African-descended Cubans battled racial violence, created pathways to citizenship and humanity, and exercised claims on the nation state. Utilizing rare primary documents on the Afro-Cuban communities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Breaking the Chains, Forging the Nation explores how black resistance to exploitative systems played a central role in the making of the Cuban nation.

Noting that the modern perception of slavery is so colored by the American experience that people tend not to see other forms, eight essays describe the servile institutions in Asia and Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among the examples are the Ottoman Empire, Thailand, the Gulf of Guinea, and Senegal. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The life and times of the thirty-second President who was reelected four times.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NAMED ONE OF TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF OPRAH’S “BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH” • NOW AN HBO ORIGINAL SPECIAL EVENT Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone) NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • O: The Oprah Magazine • The Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • Vogue • Los Angeles Times • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • New York • Newsday • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.

Indianapolis has long been steeped in important moments in African American history, from businesswoman Madame C. J. Walker's success to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan to the founding of Crispus Attucks High School, which remained segregated through the 1960s. In African Americans in Indianapolis, author and historian David Leander Williams explores this history by examining the daunting and horrendous historical events African Americans living in Indianapolis encountered between 1820 and 1970, as well as the community's determination to overcome these challenges. Revealing many events that have yet to be recorded in history books, textbooks, or literature, Williams chronicles the lives and careers of many influential individuals and the organizations that worked tirelessly to open doors of opportunity to the entire African American community. African Americans in Indianapolis serves as a reminder of the advancements that Black midwestern ancestors made toward freedom and equality, as well as the continual struggle against inequalities that must be overcome.

Bloomberg • Best Nonfiction Books of 2020: "[A] tour de force." The basis of a major PBS documentary by Ric Burns, this “excellent history” (The New Yorker) reveals how the automobile fundamentally changed African American life. Driving While Black demonstrates that the car—the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility—has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing black families to evade the dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road. Melding new archival research with her family’s story, Gretchen Sorin recovers a lost history, demonstrating how, when combined with black travel guides—including the famous Green Book—the automobile encouraged a new way of resisting oppression.

This is the story of a handful of men, led by Thomas Clarkson, who defied the slave trade and ignited the first great human rights movement. Beginning in 1788, a group of Abolitionists moved the cause of anti-slavery from the floor of Parliament to the homes of 300,000 people boycotting Caribbean sugar, and gave a platform to freed slaves.