Black History—from the beginning

Ebony, Feb, 2005

Some expert choir and orchestra conductors exhort their groups that they need a strong beginning and strong ending-that's what is important. In February, Black History Month, we celebrate our strong beginnings and look forward to a strong ending, finally fulfilling all of the promises made of justice for all. Here are some classic and new Black History books that light the path of our historical remembrance:

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM: A HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS--8TH EDITION (Alfred A. Knopf, $49.95) by John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss Jr. is the latest edition of the classic text that is a must-read for every student of Black history. This newest edition includes additional material on slave resistance, women's history and popular culture, adding recent history of freedom struggles of Blacks in the U.S. Caribbean and Latin America.

Reserve space on your coffee table or nightstand for another seminal Black History book, BEFORE THE MAYFLOWER: A HISTORY OF BLACK AMERICA (Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., $44.95), by Lerone Bennett Jr. This newly updated edition of the classic work on Black history features expanded material in every chapter, a new section on Black pioneers and Black firsts, and 126 photographs--55 in full color. The emphasis throughout this book is on history as revelation and transformation with a timeline that covers significant dates and events from the 14th century to the 21st century.

BLACK WOMEN IN AMERICA: AN HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA (Indiana University Press, $40.00-paperback), edited by Darlene Clark Hine, Elsa Barkley Brown and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, is a two-volume encyclopedia containing more than 600 entries describing the lives of prominent Black women. The publication of this book broke new ground and sparked new research regarding African-American women in history, according to one reviewer.

New in bookstores this month is FREEDOM: A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN STRUGGLE (Phaidon, $39.95) by Manning Marable and Leith Mullings. The book is a photographic history of the African-American struggle from the 19th century to the present and includes 500 photographs, some previously unpublished. From the bonds of slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, from the Deep South to the Northern migration, from the Harlem Renaissance to the riots of South Central Los Angeles, the book presents a photographic history of this struggle from the 1860s to the present.