Image descriptions:
Image one: Women's History Month
Image two: E-book titled Black Women in Sequence: Re-inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime (2015) - synopsis: From the 1971 appearance of the Skywald Publications character “the Butterfly” – the first Black female superheroine in a comic book – to contemporary comic books, graphic novels, film, manga, and video gaming, a growing number of Black women are becoming producers, viewers, and subjects of sequential art. As the first detailed investigation of Black women’s participation in comic art, Black Women in Sequence examines the representation, production, and transnational circulation of women of African descent in the sequential art world.
Image three: E-book titled Baseline Shift: Untold Stories of Women in Graphic Design History (2021) - synopsis: Baseline Shift captures the untold stories of women across time who used graphic design to earn a living while changing the world, centering diverse women across backgrounds whose work has shaped, shifted, and formed graphic design as we know it today. From an interdisciplinary book designer and calligrapher during Harlem’s Renaissance, to the invisible drafters of Monotype’s drawing office, the women represented here include auteurs, advocates for social justice, and creators ahead of their time.
Image one: E-book titled Caring for Equality: A History of African American Health and Healthcare (2018) - synopsis: In Caring for Equality, David McBride chronicles the struggle by African Americans and their white allies to improve poor black health conditions as well as inadequate medical care. Black American health progress resulted from the steady influence of what David McBride calls the health equality ideal: the principle that health of black Americans could and should be equal to that of whites and other Americans.
Image two: E-book titled Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: "There Is a Mystery..." - synopsis: In Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There is a Mystery…,” Stephen C. Finley, Margarita Simon Guillory, and Hugh R. Page, Jr. assemble twenty groundbreaking essays that provide a rationale and parameters for Africana Esoteric Studies (AES): a new trans-disciplinary enterprise focused on the investigation of esoteric lore and practices in Africa and the African Diaspora.
Image one: Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements (2015) - synopsis: Editors Walidah Imarisha and Adrienne Maree Brown have brought twenty stories together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change. The visionary tales of Octavia’s Brood span genres (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, magical realism), but all are united by an attempt to inject a healthy dose of imagination and innovation into our political practice and to try on new ways of understanding ourselves, the world around us, and all the selves and worlds that could be.
Image two: E-book titled Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in the Army Nurse Corps (2015) - synopsis: In Nursing Civil Rights, Charissa J. Threat investigates the parallel battles against occupational segregation by African American women and white men in the U.S. Army. As Threat reveals, both groups viewed their circumstances with the Army Nurse Corps as a civil rights matter, and each conducted separate integration campaigns to end the discrimination they suffered.
Image one: E-book titled Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change (2013) - synopsis: A staunch proponent of breaking down racial and gender barriers, Shirley Chisholm had the esteemed privilege of being a pioneer in many aspects of her life. She was the first African American woman from Brooklyn elected to the New York State legislature and the first African American woman elected to Congress in 1968. She also made a run for the Democratic Party nomination for president in 1972. Focusing on Chisholm’s lifelong advocacy for fair treatment, access to education, and equal pay for all American minority groups, this book explores the life of a remarkable woman in the context of twentieth-century urban America and the tremendous social upheaval that occurred after World War II.
Image two: E-book titled Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements (2005) - synopsis: The traditional narrative of the civil rights movement as largely a southern phenomenon, organized primarily by male leaders has been complicated by studies that root the movement in smaller communities across the country. These local movements had varying agendas and organizational development, geared to the particular circumstances, resources, and regions in which they operated. Local civil rights activists frequently worked in tandem with the national civil rights movement but often functioned autonomously from—and sometimes even at odds with—the national movement. Together, the pathbreaking essays in Groundwork teach us that local civil rights activity was a vibrant component of the larger civil rights movement, and contributed greatly to its national successes.
Image one: E-book titled Suffrage Reconstructed: Gender, Race, and Voting Rights in the Civil War Era (2015) - synopsis: The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, identified all legitimate voters as “male.” In so doing, it added gender-specific language to the U.S. Constitution for the first time. Suffrage Reconstructed considers how and why the amendment's authors made this decision. Vividly detailing congressional floor bickering and activist campaigning, Laura E. Free takes readers into the pre- and postwar fights over precisely who should have the right to vote. By integrating gender analysis and political history, Suffrage Reconstructed offers a new interpretation of the Civil War–era remaking of American democracy, placing African American activists and women’s rights advocates at the heart of nineteenth-century American conversations about public policy and civil rights.
Image two: E-book titled Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom (2015) - synopsis: Posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007, Richard Durham creatively chronicled and brought to life the significant events of his times. Durham’s trademark narrative style engaged listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture. In Word Warrior, award-winning radio producer Sonja D. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham's astounding career.
Image one: E-book titled Before Jackie Robinson: The Transcendent Role of Black Sporting Pioneers (2017) - synopsis: While the accomplishments and influence of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, and Muhammad Ali are doubtless impressive solely on their merits, these luminaries of the Black sporting experience did not emerge spontaneously. Their rise was part of a gradual evolution in social and power relations in American culture between the 1890s and 1940s that included athletes such as jockey Isaac Murphy, barnstorming pilot Bessie Coleman, and golfer Teddy Rhodes.
Image two: E-book titled Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas (2016) - synopsis: Retraces the path of the cakewalk and African-inspired dance as forerunners to formalized productions at theaters in the major metropolitan areas. From Houston's Ensemble and Encore Theaters to the Jubilee in Fort Worth, gospel stage plays of the Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, as well as San Antonio's Hornsby Entertainment Theater Company and Renaissance Guild, concluding with ProArts Collective in Austin, this book features founding narratives, descriptions of key players and memorable productions, and enlightening discussions of community reception and the business challenges faced by each theatre.
Image one: E-book titled Who Writes for Black Children?: African American Children's Literature before 1900 (2017) - synopsis: Until recently, scholars believed that African American children’s literature did not exist before 1900. Now, Who Writes for Black Children? opens the door to a rich archive of largely overlooked literature read by black children. This volume’s combination of analytic essays, bibliographic materials, and primary texts offers alternative histories for early African American literary studies and children's literature studies.
Image two: E-book titled Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica (2005) - synopsis: During the heyday of the U.S. and international labor movements in the 1930s and 1940s, Ferdinand Smith, the Jamaican-born co-founder and second-in-command of the National Maritime Union (NMU), stands out as one of the most - if not the most - powerful black labor leaders in the United States. Smith’s active membership in the Communist Party, however, coupled with his bold labor radicalism and shaky immigration status, brought him under continual surveillance by U.S. authorities, especially during the Red Scare in the 1950s.
Image one: Black History Month
Image two: E-book titled Not Straight, Not White: Black Gay Men from the March on Washington to the AIDS Crisis (2016) - synopsis: In locating the rise of black gay identities in historical context, author Kevin Mumford explores how activists, performers, and writers rebutted negative stereotypes and refused sexual objectification. Examining the lives of both famous and little-known black gay activists--from James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin to Joseph Beam and Brother Grant-Michael Fitzgerald--Mumford analyzes the ways in which movements for social change both inspired and marginalized black gay men.
Image three: E-book titled Reckoning Day: Race, Place, and the Atom Bomb in Postwar America (2013) - synopsis: Reckoning Day is the first book to examine the relationship of African Americans to the atom bomb in postwar America. It tells the wide-ranging story of African Americans’ response to the atomic threat in the postwar period. It examines the anti-nuclear writing and activism of major figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Lorraine Hansberry as well as the placement (or absence) of black characters in white-authored doomsday fiction and nonfiction.
