Central Kansas Library System

President Abraham Lincoln freed millions of slaves in the South in 1863, rescuing them, as history tells us, from a brutal and inhuman existence and making the promise of freedom and equal rights. This is a moment to celebrate and honor, to be sure, but what of the darker, more troubling side of this story? Slavery's Ghost explores the dire, debilitating, sometimes crushing effects of slavery on race relations in American history. In three conceptually...

This volume examines the historical connections between the United States' Reconstruction and the country's emergence as a geopolitical power a few decades later. It shows how the processes at work during the postbellum decade variously foreshadowed, inhibited, and conditioned the development of the United States as an overseas empire and regional hegemon. In doing so, it links the diverse topics of abolition, diplomacy, Jim Crow, humanitarianism,...

In a sweeping reinterpretation of the history of disfranchisement, Steve Suitts illuminates how a century of political conflicts in Alabama came to shape both some of America's best achievements in voting rights and its continuing struggles over voter suppression. A War of Sections tells the unknown political history symbolized today by the annual pilgrimage of presidents and celebrities across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It is the story of how that...

An exploration of Jewish history in the Lone Star State, from the Jews who fled the Spanish Inquisition to contemporary Jewish communities. Texas has one of the largest Jewish populations in the South and West, comprising an often-overlooked vestige of the Diaspora. The Chosen Folks brings this rich aspect of the past to light, going beyond single biographies and photographic histories to explore the full evolution of the Jewish experience in Texas. Drawing...

Black, Brown, and White: Stories Straight Outta Compton chronicles the lives of three friends from different ethnic backgrounds, including their unique individual experiences while coming of age in Compton, California, during the 1960s and early '70s. Against the backdrop of the nation's civil rights and black power movements, Compton quickly transitioned from majority White to majority Black and became known as the "Murder Capital of the United States."...

Now adapted for young adults, the #1 New York times best-selling memoir offers an intimate look at Barack Obama's early days, tracing the future 44th president's odyssey through family, race, and identity. The son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. Obama retraces the migration of his mother's family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of...

"Set in a small Nova Scotia town settled by former slaves, [the novel] depicts several generations of one family bound together and torn apart by blood, faith, time, and fate. Structured as a triptych, Africaville chronicles the lives of three generations of the Sebolt family--Kath Ella, her son Omar/Etienne, and her grandson Warner--whose lives unfold against the tumultuous events of the twentieth century from the Great Depression of the 1930s, through...

The incredible story of the man and legend who has come to symbolize the continuing pursuit of justice for Blacks in the United States Through the 1980s, the mainstream press portrayed the Reverend Al Sharpton as a buffoon, a fake minister, a hustler, an opportunist, a demagogue, a race traitor, and an anti-Semite. Today, Sharpton occupies a throne that would have shocked the white newspaper reporters who covered him forty years ago. A mesmerizing...

Provides unique insight into Reconstruction's downfall and Jim Crow's emergence. In the years and decades following the American Civil War, veteran abolitionists actively thought and wrote about the campaign to end enslavement immediately. This study explores the late-in-life reflections of several antislavery memorial and historical writers, evaluating the stable and shifting meanings of antebellum abolitionism amidst dramatic changes in postbellum...

The first comprehensive history of African Americans in the Palmetto State, spanning five centuries. From the first North American slave rebellion near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in the early sixteenth century to the 2008 state Democratic primary victory of Barack Obama, award-winning historian J. Brent Morris examines the unique struggles and triumphs of African Americans in South Carolina. Following an engaging introduction, Morris brings...