LibGuides: 2023 Black History Month: The Black History of America (General Resources)

PRE COLONIAL DAYS

Who Was the First African American? by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Root. 10/22/12
Tells the story of Juan Garrido (born in West Africa around 1480).
The First Africans in Virginia Landed in 1619. It Was a Turning Point for Slavery in American History—But Not the Beginning. by Olivia B. Waxman. Time Magazine. August 20, 2019.

AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1773 - 1783)

African American Cultural Heritage: Exhibits & Films at Jamestown Settlement & American Revolution Museum at Yorktown
Virtual and in person exhibits at the museum.
African Americans and the War for Independence. American Battlefield Trust.
A short but fairly comprehensive look at the soldiers, regiments, battles and conditions of the Negro experience in the Revolutionary War. Includes many related links.
Give me Liberty: African Americans in the Revolutionary War. George Washington's Mt Vernon.
Read about three Black patriots and their life paths as well as how the war forever changed George Washington's perspective on slavery.
Lord Dunmore's Proclamation (1775). Encyclopedia of Virginia. Primary Source.
In this proclamation, created on November 7, 1775, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, declares martial law and emancipates all slaves and indentured servants willing to fight for the British.
New Jersey African American History Curriculum Guide: Grades 9 to 12 -Unit 4 Blacks in the Revolutionary Era, 1776-1789. Larry A. Greene, Lenworth Gunther.

The Revolution's Black Soldiers by Robert A. Selig.
Overview of African Americans' role in the war, for both the British and patriots.
Black Patriots of the American Revolution Massachusetts
A Forgotten Founder by Danielle Allen. The Atlantic Magazine. February 10, 2021.
This is a look into the life and legacy of Prince Hall, a free African, in the "New World", at the time of the Revolutionary War and founder of the Negro Masonic Order in America.
Wentworth Cheswell: The Black man who rode with Paul Revere

ANTEBELLUM PERIOD (roughly 1820 to 1860)

The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period. Library of Congress.
Primary sources documenting free Negroes (Blacks) during the post Revolution/pre-Civil War era. Includes artifacts related to Phyllis Wheatley, Olaudah Equiano, Benjamin Banneker, recolonization efforts to Sierra Leone and Liberia, founding of the Black church and more.

Read in entirety

The Other John Brown...

John "Fed" Brown

c.1810 – 1876

fugitive slave

author

John Brown, the fugitive slave.

Biography and Primary Resources, PBS.

The Other John Brown...

John Brown

1800 – 1859

abolitionist

John Brown, the abolitionist

North American Slave Narratives. University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"...books and articles that document the individual and collective story of African Americans struggling for freedom and human rights in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries." - Website

CIVIL WAR (1861 - 1865)

THE DRAFT WAR OF 1863

Riot by Walter Dean Mosley. Here is a very interesting read that looks at the intersection of race, bigotry and classism, through an event that, in many ways, mirrors the recent January 6th attack on our U.S. Capitol...except, it was nearly 160 years ago. Unlimited copies are available in SORA. (Note: This is just one of many ebooks available in or SORA (in Clever) and Destiny collections. Search Term: Black History)