National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Popular Culture, Making of African American Identity: V. 2

Newspaper articles that illustrate how benevolent and charitable societies fostered racial solidarity among African Americans in late-nineteenth-century America are provided. Links to these articles can be found on the second page.

Chapter from a novel that describes the workings of a charitable society. This chapter, "The Sewing Circle," illustrates some of the various functions that institutions, especially the benevolent and charitable societies, performed in...

Sixteen texts-historical documents, literary texts, visual images, audio, and video material-that explore the political, social, and cultural state of African Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Chapter from a novel and images that illustrate black political action in late-nineteenth-century America. Frances Harper's 1892 novel Iola Leroy, is examined, covering topics of white supremacy and racial justice.

A poem, an address, and a painting that illustrate black political struggle in late-nineteenth-century America. This series of resources characterize "the Negro Problem" as "a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great...

An article that critiques the early civil rights efforts of the Kennedy administration. It explores the obstacles the civil rights movement had to overcome and the movement's effect on the lives of African Americans.

An appeal for black voting rights and an editorial cartoon opposing them. This resource explains that while the 15th Amendment granted black men the right to vote, southern states fought to block its implementation.

An eighteenth-century map, several illustrations by Europeans of Africans from Sierra Leone, and two eighteenth-century narratives depicting Sierra Leone natives through the eyes of two British physicians who describe the peoples they...

On February 16, 1965, in Rochester, New York, Malcolm X delivered a speech that placed African American in a global black community. Just five days before his assassination, he relates the American civil rights movement to similar...

Interviews from the 1930s that reflect on African Americans' experience of the institution of slavery. A narrative with firsthands accounts is linked within this resource.