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African American History Top Ten Booklist

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1. Vincent Harding, [https://www.amazon.com/There-River-Struggle-Freedom-America/dp/0156890895 There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in America]. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981.
 
This books renders the African American experience as an epic journey of resistance, likening the latter to a river.
 
2. W.E.B. Du Bois, [https://www.amazon.com/Black-Reconstruction-America-1860-1880-Burghardt/dp/0684856573/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372607&sr=1-1&keywords=black+reconstruction+in+america Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruction Democracy in America, 1860-1880]. New York: Russel and Russel, 1935.
 
Du Bois rewrites the history of the Civil War and Reconstruction amid the attempts to negate Black participation in both and the need to engage theories of the Left.
 
3. Paula Giddings, [https://www.amazon.com/When-Where-Enter-Impact-America/dp/0688146503/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372636&sr=1-1&keywords=when+and+where+i+enter When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America]. New York: Morrow, 1984.
 
Giddings’ narrative history of Black women in America is one of the first of its kind, a product of the shift in Black women’s consciousness in the wake of the feminist movement.
 
4. Carter G. Woodson, [https://www.amazon.com/Negro-History-Carter-Godwin-Woodson/dp/1522901833/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372659&sr=1-1&keywords=the+negro+in+our+history The Negro in our History]. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1922.
 
Woodson’s is one of the first textbook histories of the Black experience that was widely used in schools.
 
5. Deborah Gray White, [https://www.amazon.com/Arnt-Woman-Female-Slaves-Plantation/dp/0393314812/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372694&sr=1-1&keywords=arn%27t+i+a+woman Ar’n’t I A Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South]. New York: Norton, 1985.
 
Part of the push to examine the lives of enslaved women, White’s work offers much evidence that their experiences were nuanced and unique.
 
6. George Washington Williams, [https://www.amazon.com/History-Negro-Race-America-1880/dp/1530313724/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1506372722&sr=1-1 History of the Negro Race in America, 1619 to 1880]. New York: Putnam, 1885.
 
Williams’ two volume, thousand page work is often considered the first formal historical study of African America.
 
7. Cedric Robinson, [https://www.amazon.com/Movements-America-Revolutionary-Thought-Radical/dp/0415912229/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372772&sr=1-1&keywords=black+movements+in+america Black Movements in America]. New York: Routledge, 1997.
 
A short volume that considers African American experiences through the lens of mass movements for freedom.
 
8. Tera W. Hunter, [https://www.amazon.com/Joy-My-Freedom-Southern-Womens/dp/0674893085/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372801&sr=1-1&keywords=to+joy+my+freedom To ‘Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors after the Civil War]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
 
A consideration of Black women’s lives after the end of the Civil War and through the tumultuous years of Reconstruction and the Nadir.
 
9. William Wells Brown, [https://www.amazon.com/Black-Man-Antecedents-genius-Achievements-ebook/dp/B007B1SHWO/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372790&sr=1-2&keywords=william+wells+brown+%22the+black+man%22 The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements]. New York: Thomas Hamilton, 1873.
 
An example of the kinds of “compendium” histories that were popular in the nineteenth century.
 
10. John Hope Franklin, [https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Freedom-History-African-Americans/dp/0072963786/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372884&sr=1-1&keywords=from+slavery+to+freedom From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans]. New York: Knopf, 1947.
 
The still dominant text in use in college classrooms, has gone through successive editions and considers the journey of African Americans from a liberal perspective.

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