Black history isn’t just for Black History Month. The legacy and thought of our Black history titles and authors continue, always.
Browse below for titles that explore rich aspects of Black history, from the lives and philosophy of individuals such as Oliver C. Cox, Nannie Helen Burroughs, and William Still, to larger groups such as women in the Caribbean and Black scholars, both at Notre Dame and beyond. There are a number of highlights from our African American Intellectual Heritage Series, bringing incredible and necessary Black history books back into print.
Nannie Helen Burroughs:
A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900–1959
“In a public career that spanned six decades, the educator and civil rights activist Nannie Helen Burroughs was a leading voice in the African American community. . . . In this collection of documents, the historian Kelisha B. Graves focuses on Burroughs’s published writings on race and racism, women’s rights, and social justice. . . . Graves has raised interesting questions about ambiguities in the black protest movement in the first half of the twentieth century.”
—The Journal of American History
Black Domers:
African-American Students at Notre Dame in Their Own Words
“Black Domers is a remarkable read. Through the editors’ masterful balance of narrative depth and historical breadth, readers witness the trials, tribulations, brilliance, and resilience of black students at Notre Dame over the past seven decades. Reading this book left me emotional at times. Still, I remained inspired, with a resolute sense of pride in walking the campus where these trailblazers broke down barriers. Black Domers serves not only as a testament of how far we have come, but as a charge to continue the important work of ensuring that the experiences of every member of the Notre Dame family are consistent and reflect well on Our Lady.”
—Eric Love, director of staff diversity and inclusion, University of Notre Dame
William Still:
The Underground Railroad and the Angel at Philadelphia
“In the first scholarly biography of [William] Still, Kashatus highlights the critical roles Still and other Black Americans played along the entire Underground Railroad, and the risks they took to aid enslaved people. A penetrating analysis of Still’s interviews reveals new and important insights into the enslaved people who made the journey into freedom. . . . An essential work that is a must-read for those interested in the Underground Railroad and Black history in the U.S.”
—Library Journal (Starred Review)
Bursting Bonds:
The Autobiography of a “New Negro”
“This is a reprint of the second, extended edition from 1923 of the autobiography of Professor William Pickens, a leading member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Pickens, whose parents were liberated slaves, studied classics at Yale, became a professor at Talladega College in Alabama, and was involved in the NAACP from its inception in 1910.”
—International Review of Social History
“McAuley offers a fine survey of Cox’s overall scholarly contribution, presenting a sympathetic, though not uncritical, account. This is an excellent study of the ‘mind’ . . . of Cox. Highly recommended.”
—Choice
Caribbean Women:
An Anthology of Non-Fiction Writing, 1890-1981
“Veronica Gregg’s Caribbean Women should settle decisively any lingering doubts about Caribbean women’s agency, contribution to indigenous knowledge production, and intellectual thought. It is also a wonderful project of ancestral recognition.”
—Verene A. Shepherd, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
Black Scholars on the Line:
Race, Social Science, and American Thought in the Twentieth Century
“Logically organized, well contextualized, and insightfully theorized, Holloway and Keppel’s anthology enriches our knowledge of African American social scientists who operated during the era of segregation. In providing important primary documents that complement the numerous available biographies and studies of black scholars, this collection should be useful to any student of twentieth-century African American intellectual history.”
—The Journal of Southern History
Racial Thinking in the United States:
Uncompleted Independence
“Racial Thinking in the United States is a tremendously useful anthology that brings together cutting-edge scholarship on racial formations in the United States. The collection will be of use to scholars and teachers who are interested in thinking through difficult questions related to teaching racial formations. Those who have waited for a new consideration of racial formations will welcome Racial Thinking in the United States; it provides a solid historical framework within which to understand contemporary issues of racial identity and meaning.”
—The Journal of American History
“Walls reminds us of the differences that set us apart, dividing our world into good kids and troublemakers, winners and losers, the beautiful and the damned. The anodyne for exile in these essays is McClane’s common but by no means commonplace lexicon, at once evocative and spare, that leads us to painful but honest connection and the luminous possibility of empathy.”
—William L. Andrews, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Color:
Essays on Race, Family, and History
“Acclaimed poet and literary scholar McClane follows Walls (1991), observations on life as an African American, with a new collection of interconnected essays covering disparate subjects with the locus on race. Exploring the importance of memory and identity with gentle recollections of stories told by his parents and earlier memories of racial discrimination and humiliation, McClane offers a vivid personal perspective on race.”
—Booklist
The Spirit vs. the Souls:
Max Weber, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Politics of Scholarship
“The Spirit vs. the Souls advances a well-imagined conversation between two of the most eminent sociologists of the last century, especially concerning capitalism, imperialism, and the significance of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the shaping of the modern world. Conceptually intriguing and rigorously documented, Christopher McAuley’s astute observations on the rival notions of Weber and Du Bois—and the broader politics of thinking about race—should be measured as an outstanding contribution to African American intellectual history.”
—Patrick B. Miller, Northeastern Illinois University
Abandoned Tracks:
The Underground Railroad in Washington County, Pennsylvania
“In recent years, there has been an outpouring of important new scholarship on the Underground Railroad. W. Thomas Mainwaring’s Abandoned Tracks will stand with the best of these efforts as a shining example of a carefully researched local history that deftly puts the story of Washington County, Pennsylvania in the full context of the coming of the Civil War.” —Matthew Pinsker, Dickinson College