LibGuides: Celebrate Black History Month: Home

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Juneteenth Syllabus (created by JoeHahn)

Celebrating Black History Month 2024: African Americans and the Arts

African American art is infused with African, Caribbean, and the Black American lived experiences. In the fields of visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression, the African American influence has been paramount. African American artists have used art to preserve history and community memory as well as for empowerment. Artistic and cultural movements such as the New Negro, Black Arts, Black Renaissance, hip-hop, and Afrofuturism, have been led by people of African descent and set the standard for popular trends around the world. In 2024, we examine the varied history and life of African American arts and artisans.

Read the complete Executive Summary for the 2024 Theme at the Association for the Study of African American Life and History website

Featured Library Exhibit: Racing to Change: Oregon's Civil Rights Years

Gallery Exhibit: Racing to Change

Explore how racist attitudes, policies of exclusion, and the destruction of Black-owned neighborhoods shaped Oregon, and how the Black community worked to overcome these obstacles.

February 12th - April 10th

Hamersly Library 2nd Floor Gallery

Black History Month Recommended Reading

An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
Call Number: E184.S75 O79 2018
ISBN: 9780807013106
Publication Date: 2018
Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism.
Also available as an eBook title
When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Cullors; asha bandele; Angela Davis (Foreword by)
Call Number: E185.97.K43 A3 2018
ISBN: 1250171083
Publication Date: 2018
Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, three women – Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Khan-Cullors – came together to form an active response to the systemic racism causing the deaths of so many African-Americans. They simply said: Black Lives Matter; and for that, they were labelled terrorists. In this empowering account of survival, strength and resilience, Patrisse Khan-Cullors and award-winning author and journalist asha bandele recount the personal story that led Patrisse to become a founder of Black Lives Matter, seeking to end the culture that declares Black life expendable. Like the era-defining movement she helped create, this rallying cry demands you do not look away.
Also available as an ebook and eaudio title.
A Black Women's History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry; Kali Nicole Gross
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 0807033553
Publication Date: 2020
In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis; Frank Barat (Editor); Cornel West (Preface by)
Call Number: JC571 .D33275 2016
ISBN: 9781608465644
Publication Date: 2016
In these newly collected essays, interviews, and speeches, world-renowned activist and scholar Angela Y. Davis illuminates the connections between struggles against state violence and oppression throughout history and around the world.

Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.
The Black Panther Party by David F. Walker; Marcus Kwame Anderson (Illustrator)
Call Number: E185.615 .W275 2021
ISBN: 1984857703
Publication Date: 2021
Founded in Oakland, California, in 1966, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was a radical political organization that stood in defiant contrast to the mainstream civil rights movement. This gripping illustrated history explores the impact and significance of the Panthers, from their social, educational, and healthcare programs that were designed to uplift the Black community to their battle against police brutality through citizen patrols and frequent clashes with the FBI, which targeted the Party from its outset.

Using dramatic comic book-style retellings and illustrated profiles of key figures, The Black Panther Party captures the major events, people, and actions of the party, as well as their cultural and political influence and enduring legacy.
How We Fight White Supremacy by Akiba Solomon; Kenrya Rankin
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 1568588496
Publication Date: 2019
Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight White supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.
The Skin We're In by Desmond Cole
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9780385686341
Publication Date: 2020
The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power is a book by Desmond Cole published by Doubleday Canada in 2020. The Skin We're In describes the struggle against racism in Canada during the year 2017, chronicling Cole's role as an anti-racist activist and the impact of systemic racism in Canadian society
Black Joy by Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts
Call Number: eBook
ISBN: 9781982176556
Publication Date: 2022
With this book, Tracey aims to gift her community with a collection of lyrical essays about the way joy has evolved, even in the midst of trauma, in her own life. Detailing these instances of joy in the context of Black culture allows us to recognize the power of Black joy as a resource to draw upon, and to challenge the one-note narratives of Black life as solely comprised of trauma and hardship.