Describes the life of the sharecroppers' son who became an Olympic legend and challenged Hitler's dream of Aryan superiority.

"The Narrative of Sojourner Truth is the memoir of an African-American woman who struggled against the bondages of slavery in the early 1800s. It is one of the most famous slave narratives of all time and is one of the most important documents of slavery ever written. This is her story. This is her voice. Dictated to her friend Olive Gilbert and first published privately in 1850, this partial autobiography of the woman who became a pioneer in the...

In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father, a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man, has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey, first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of...

An introduction to the life Martin Luther King, Jr. Including how he organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott and African American people across the country in support of the right to vote, desegregation, and other basic civil rights.

Roots by Alex Haley has had a revolutionary impact on American History and on how the American people view themselves. Roots came out as a book in 1976 and then was broadcast as a 8-part TV series that was watched 130 million people. Practically the entire US population turned on their TVs to watch the Roots series every day. Roots has also had a long-lasting effect on the study of genealogy. Thousands of Americas including especially Black Americans...

"Join us on a journey across borders, through time and even through space to meet 52 icons of color from the past and present in a celebration of achievement. Meet figureheads, leaders, and pioneers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Rosa Parks, as well as cultural trailblazers and sporting heroes, including Stevie Wonder, Oprah Winfrey, and Serena Williams. Discover how their childhood dreams and experiences influenced their adult...

Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche (1903-1971) was a statesman, peace negotiator, leading intellectual and scholar, and the first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. An African American who overcame racial prejudice and poverty to become Undersecretary General of the United Nations, Bunche's life offers a unique window on many key issues and historical events that took place during the middle of the 20th century. This award-winning two-hour documentary...

"In this impressive anthology, Natalie Baszile brings together essays, poems, photographs, quotes, conversations, and first-person stories to examine black people's connection to the American land from Emancipation to today. In the 1920s, there were over one million black farmers; today there are just 45,000. Baszile explores this crisis, through the farmers' personal experiences. In their own words, middle aged and elderly black farmers explain why...

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is a memoir of a black man who was born free in New York state but kidnapped, sold into slavery and kept in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before the American Civil War. He provided details of slave markets in Washington, DC, as well as describing at length cotton cultivation on major plantations in Louisiana.