Anthologies of African American Writing

Afro-American History: Primary Sources (2nd ed.)

"Afro-American History: Primary Sources." Ed. Thomas R. Frazier. 2nd ed. Chicago: Dorsey, 1988.

"Afro-American History: Primary Sources." Ed. Thomas R. Frazier. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1970.

"Afro-American History: Primary Sources." Ed. Thomas R. Frazier. Shorter Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971.

"Readings in African-American History." Ed. Thomas R. Frazier. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2001.

Part 1: Africa and the Slave Trade
● Venture Smith / Taken from the Guinea Coast as a Child [from "A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture"]
● Olaudah Equiano / The Horrors of the Middle Passage [from "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano"]
● Omar ibn Seid / A Devout Moslem Sold to the Infidels / Omar ibn Seid [from "Autobiography"]

Part 2: The Afro-American before 1800
● Absalom Jones and Richard Allen / Blacks Serve the City in a Time of Crisis [from "A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia"]
● African Society / Black People Organize for Self-Protection [from "The Rules of the African Society"]
● Several persons / A Plea for Federal Protection for Manumitted Slaves of the South [from "Petition of Four Free Blacks to the United States House of Representatives, 1797"]

Part 3: Slavery in the Nineteenth Century
● Nat Turner / Rebellion [from "The Confessions of Nat Turner"]
● Mary Reynolds / Life as a Slave [from "A Narrative"]
● James W. C. Pennington / The Escape of a Fugitive Slave [from "The Fugitive Blacksmith"]
Let My People Go: Spirituals
● Spiritual / Go Down, Moses
● Spiritual / All God's Chillun Got Wings
● Spiritual / Steal Away to Jesus
● Spiritual / Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel
● Spiritual / I Thank God I'm Free at Last

Part 4: The Free Black Community, 1800-1860
● David Walker / The White Church's Oppression of the Black Man [Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ (from the "Appeal"]
● Charles L. Remond / Discrimination in the Free States [from "Address to a Legislative Committee in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1842"]
● Henry Highland Garnet / The Slave Must Throw Off the Slaveholder [from "Address to a Convention in Buffalo, 1843"]

Part 5: The Civil War and Reconstruction
● Frederick Douglass / Free the Slaves, Then Leave Them Alone [from "Address to the Emancipation League in Boston, 1862"]
● Charlotte Forten / Educating the Freedmen of the Sea Islands [from "Life on the Sea Islands"]
● Several persons / Debate on Compulsory Free Public Education for All [from "A Record of Proceedings at the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina, 1868"]
● Blanche K. Bruce / Discrimination in Mississippi Elections [from "Address to the United States Senate, 1876"]

Part 6: The Legal Segregation of Free People
● Anon. / The Areas of Racial Discrimination [from "Report of the Committee on Grievances at the State Convention of Colored Men of Texas, 1883"]
● Henry M. Turner / Attack on the Supreme Court [from "The Outrage of the Supreme Court: A Letter from Henry M. Turner"]
● Anon. / Peonage in the South [from "The Life Story of a Negro Peon"]

Part 7: The Organization of Protest
● Booker T. Washington / Education Before Equality [from "The Atlanta Exposition Address, 1893"]
● W. E. B. Du Bois / Equality and Education [from "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others"]
● Anon. / Black Men Organize [from "The Niagara Movement Declaration of Principles, 1905"]
● NAACP / The NAACP Program for Change [from "The Task for the Future--A Program for 1919"]
● Anon. / Why Blacks Must Organize for Legal Rights [from "The Waco Horror: A Report on a Lynching"]

Part 8: The Great Migration Brings a New Mood
● Several persons / Why Blacks Chose to Leave the South [from Letters of Negro Migrants of 1916-1918]
● Stanley B. Norvell / A Bloody Smear in the Promised Land [from "Views of a Negro During the Red Summer of 1919: A Letter from Stanley B. Norvell"]
Black Poets Sing
● Countee Cullen / Yet Do I Marvel
● Countee Cullen / Heritage (for Harold Jackman)
● Langston Hughes / I, Too
● Langston Hughes / Dream Variation
● James Weldon Johnson / Go Down Death (A Funeral Sermon)
● Claude McKay / If We Must Die
● Marcus Garvey / Free Africa for Africans [from "The Negro's Greatest Enemy"]

Part 9: Depression and War: Struggle and Advance
● Ella Baker and Marvel Cooke / Domestic Slavery [from "The Bronx Slave Market"]
● Angelo Herndon / A Black Workingman in the Communist Party [from "You Cannot Kill the Working Class"]
● A. Philip Randolph / March for a Fair Share [from "The March on Washington Movement, 1941"]
● Walter White / Battle on the Home Front [from "What Caused the Detroit Riots?"]

Part 10: School Desegregation
● NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund / Separate Schools Are Deliberately Unequal [from "Summary of Argument Presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, 1953"]
● Daisy Bates / Little Rock Prepares for Desegregation [from "Governor Faubus Rouses the Mob"]
● James Meredith / Meredith Cracks Ole Miss [from "I'll Know Victory or Defeat"]

Part 11: The Nonviolent Civil Rights Movement
● Martin Luther King, Jr. / The Philosophy of Nonviolent Coercion [from "Letter from Birmingham Jail"]
● Fannie Lou Hamer / Black Political Action in the South [from "Life in Mississippi: An Interview with Fannie Lou Hamer"]
We Shall Overcome: Freedom Songs
● Freedom Song / We Shall Overcome
● Freedom Song / If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus
● Freedom Song / Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round
● Freedom Song / Freedom is a Constant Struggle

Part 12: The Militant Black Liberation Movement
● Haryou-Act / Conditions in the Urban Ghetto [from "Cries of Harlem"]
● Malcolm X / Liberation by Any Means Necessary [from "Address to a Meeting in New York, 1964"]
● Black Panther Party / Black Revolutionary Nationalism [from "The Philosophy and Platform of the Black Panther Party"]
● Stokely Carmichael / The Meaning of Black Power [from "Toward Black Liberation"]

Part 13: Consolidation and Reaction
● Frances M. Beal / Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female [The Emergence of Black Feminism] [from "Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Movement." New York: Random House, 1970.340-53]
● Anon. / A Black Political Agenda [from "The National Black Political Convention, 1972"]
● Jesse Jackson / The Rainbow Coalition [from "Speech to the Democratic Convention, 1984"]
● Ebony Magazine / The Crisis of the Black Family [from "Ebony Reports on Myths about the Black Family"]

General Reading Suggestions

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