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February 2016
First Congregational Church of Detroit
Selectors: Anne Hudson and Danielle Ager
February is the month dedicated annually to Black History Month. This year's official theme is: Hallowed Grounds: Sites of African American Memories. This Guide and our Book Display at the Purdy Kresge Library are based on this theme with an emphasis on the Underground Railroad and books from our African American Literature Special Collection.
Websites, February 2016
credit University of Eastern Illinois
The following links will take you to webpages with information about the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman.
Books from the Catalog
Autobiography of a People by Call Number: PK E 185 .A97 2001ISBN: 0385492790Publication Date: 2000-12-26Anthology of eyewitness accounts that traces the history of the African American experience.
Forbidden Fruit by Call Number: UGL E 450 .D47 2005ISBN: 0743482638Publication Date: 2005-02-01Fascinating collection of true and largely untold stories from the Underground Railroad.
North by Call Number: African American Literature Special CollectionISBN: 097182147XPublication Date: 2006-02-01Historical poetry which chronicles the brutality on cotton plantations and the move north during The Great Migration (1910-1975)
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Call Number: Storage Holtzman CollectionISBN: 0195158164Publication Date: 2002-09-05No other book so effectively expressed the moral case against the "peculiar institution" of slavery.
Picture of the Display
Databases, February 2016
African American Experience
Harriet Tubman Biography
- African American Experience This link opens in a new windowAn online collection on African American life, The African American Experience is an electronic research tool for African American history and culture. The two primary goals: to provide rock-solid information from authorities in the field, and to allow African Americans to speak for themselves through a wealth of primary sources. Designed under the guidance of leading librarians, this database gives voice to the black experience from its African origins to the present day.
- African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 This link opens in a new windowAfrican American Newspapers, Series 1, 1827-1998, provides online access to 280 U.S. newspapers chronicling a century and a half of the African American experience. This unique collection, which includes papers from more than 35 states, features many rare and historically significant 19th-century titles.
- Oxford African American Studies Center This link opens in a new windowThe Oxford African American Studies Center is a comprehensive collection of scholarship available online to focus on the lives and events which have shaped African American and African history and culture.
Videos, February 2016
Images from the African American Literature Collection
Maud Martha
By Gwendolyn Brooks
Une Vie de toutes les Couleurs
By Josephine Baker and Andre Rivollet
Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius
By Margaret Walker
Uncle Tom's Cabin
By Harriet Beecher Stowe
A Feast of Poetry
Celebrating Thirty Years of Lotus Press and Its Poets
The Big Sea
By Langston Hughes
Working with the Hands
By Booker T. Washington
Jonah's Gourd Vine
By Zora Neale Hurston
The Prosaic Soul of Nikki Giovanni
By Nikki Giovanni