Lois Mailou Jones, Initiation, Liberia

"Ain't I a Woman?"

Slavery and Freedom Literature

(Part C)

INDEX

Part A:  Abolitionist and Slavery Literature

Part B:  Neo-Slave / Freedom Literature   

Part C: Resources: History,Theory,Topics 

• Historical / biographical 
• Selected Issues/Topics 
• Selected Black Critics   

Historical/Biographical Sources

Ad for an escaped slave

• African Timeline (Agatucci site)--excellent site with commentary and links. See in particular African Slave Trade and European Imperialism section.
  
  
• We Shall Overcome --Civil Rights Movement; click on links (bottom of page) to The Need for Change; The Players, The Strategy , The Cost, The Prize.
  
  
• Multi-media Assignment Bank--excellent assignments on the Abolition era, Reconstruction, and the 20th Century (with illustrations) designed by Norton Anthologies.
  
  
• On Slavery--Akomolafe answers those who put the blame for slavery on Africa.
  
  

Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?"

• Sojourner Truth--Truth biography. Sojourner Truth--biography and version of her suffrage speech.  Here are more versions of her famous suffrage speech:  Reminiscences by Frances D. Gage of Sojourner Truth;  Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sybil by Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
  
  
• Harriet Tubman--Tubman biography; see also Harriet: The Moses of her People (1886) by Sarah Bradford.
  
  
• African American Odyssey (Library of Congress)--excellent exhibit covering slavery through the modern civil rights movement.
  
  
• Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America--good book review.
  
  
• Minstrel Tradition--whites in blackface caricaturing Afro-American.
  
  
• Ida B. Wells--biography; see also Anti-Lynching Crusade of Ida B. Wells. See also KKK: A Hundred Years of Terror--essay prepared by the Southern Poverty Law Center. More information on KKK (including Women of the Klan) on my Jazz Age Literature/Culture web page.
  
  
• W.E.B. DuBois --see my American Realistic Period page.
  
  
• Marcus Garvey--Garvey biography; see also Chapter 8: The Crisis of Leadership--scroll down to the section on Garvey, from Norman Coombs' book The Immigrant Experience of America (1972).
  
  
• Martin Luther King Jr.--Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr.-this site includes many links and e-texts of many of his famous speeches, and other kinds of information about King.
  
  
• Malcolm X--Malcolm X: A Research Site--links to just about everything on Malcolm X; Official Site of Malcolm X--another comprehensive site.
  
  
• Mathilde Jocelyn Gage (suffragist/abolitionist)--excellent list of sources here on Black women, slavery, abolition, etc.
  
  
• African-American Issues:  Reconstruction/Booker T. Washington Eras--see my "Realistic Period" page.

Selected Issues and Topics

Aaron Douglas, Aspiration

Folktales, Tricksters, and Toasts:

• The African-American Toast Tradition--helpful definitions and examples.
• Gates' Signifying Monkey--links to sources on his influential book.
• African-American Folktales and their Use in an Integrated Curriculum--excellent teaching unit.
• Trickster Figures--information on trickster figures at my Native American web page; includes African tricksters and other traditions--scroll down to "Trickster links."
• Studying African-American Literature in Its Global Context --Olorounto's scholarly article, practical application of Gates' thesis to the classroom.

Interdisciplinary: Literature, Music, Art

• Jazz Age Literature/Culture, Part I and Part II and Part III--many Harlem Renaissance links on my web pages--literature, music, art, businesses, sports, lynchings, etc.--related to the 1920s. Includes links to artist Lois Mailou Jones (see images on this page).
• The Blues Impulse--many lesson plans on the Blues; article on Langston Hughes and the blues, for instance, the blues impulse in Black artists (Yale).
• 20th Century Afro-American Culture--many lesson plans on a variety of topics, including some turn-of-the-century writers (Booker T. Washington, DuBois, Chestnutt, Dunbar, etc.)
• Contemporary Art In and Out of Africa
• Art Tours--see links on my web page to Modern artists Faith Ringgold (including links to 19th century art quilts by black women) and Betye Saar.

Racial Stereotypes:

• Black American Dramatists--see my "American Drama" web page; includes Hansberry, Shange, and others. Links on minstrel and other stereotypes are included under George Aiken, Ntozake Shange, and Suzy-Lori Parks.
• Jim Crow Museum--many links at bottom of page to various racist stereotypes; excellent commentary by a professor of sociology.
• The Advertiser's Holy Trinity: Aunt Jemima, Rastus, and Uncle Ben --stereotypes in advertising.
• Representation in Art and Film: Identity and Stereotype--helpful curriculum unit.
• "Black Skins" and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race--Singer's scholarly article.

Gender and Race:

• Afro-American Literature and the American Canon--Yarborough's scholarly article on including ethnic literature in the curriculum.
• Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature--see my web page on "Caribbean literature." Many Afro-Caribbean writers.
• Female Genital Mutilation--very informative.
• Womanist Theory and Research, Vol. 1.2--many scholarly articles on issues pertaining to Black women. See also Vol. 2.1/2.2 and Vol. 3.1.

Selected Black Critics

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Banjo Lesson

Patricia Hill Collins

• Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination from Patricia Hill Collins' book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.
• Definining Black Feminist Thought--from Patricia Hill Collins' book Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment.

Shelley Fisher Fishkin

• Reframing the Multiculturism Debates--article on the development of Multicultural Studies, including the Black roots of White Culture.

Henry Louis Gates Jr

• Gates biography.
• Excerpts--from various Gates' books.
• C-Span Book Notes Transcript--Gates' interview with Brian Lamb.
• Summary of "Signifying Monkey"--short summary of Gates' thesis.
• The Signifying Monkey (excerpt)--from Gates' important book. more excerpts from Gates' writings.
• A Myth of Origins: Esu-Elegbara and the Signifying Monkey--good excerpt.
• Signifying Monkey--poem.
• The Signifying Monkey Revisited: Vernacular Discourse and African American Personal Narratives--essay.
• All Prejudices Are Not Equal--essay.
• Toasts--related information here.

bell hooks

• bell hooks--biography and other links.
• Postmodern Blackness--essay.
• Misogyny, Gansta Rap, and The Piano--essay.
• Sisters of the Yam--essay.
• When the Spirit Moves You--magazine column on spirituality in the Buddhist tradition.
• When Men Were Men--review of book/movie The Horse Whisperer.

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