Your Black History Month Recommendations

Posted by admin on 02.28.2011 at 1:47 pm

Earlier this month, we asked for your reading recommendations for Black History Month. Well, you didn’t let us down!

Let’s start with the shout outs. Thanks to Nancy J. Sukhia and Peter from the blog, and Gayle Smith Stuhrburg, Becca Snyder Loli, Sharon Klein Gorley, Kris Brassell Miller, Amy Halvorson Miller, Mary Clonts, Holly Bishop, Luciana Nechita, extra super thanks to Karen Rogers-Robinson (8 recommendations!), Kevin Taylor Jones, and Karen Miner from Facebook.

And here are your recommendations! Read more…

6 Comments » | Tagged Book Lists, BHM, Black History Month, Recommended Reading

Help us build our Black History Month reading list!

Posted by admin on 02.17.2011 at 3:03 pm

February is Black History Month, and that means it’s time to share the books that have interested, informed, and inspired you.  Here are a few of our recommendations:

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf
by Ntozake Shange
A series of 20 poems expressing the struggles and obstacles facing contemporary African-American women throughout their lives. This play, performed on Broadway and adapted as a film, deals with many of the hot-button issues that we face today, and does so with beautiful imagery and powerful characters.
— Eddie Porrello, Performance Marketing

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance–A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
by Danielle L. McGuire
A new look at the civil rights movement. This book is for anyone interested in history in general, black history, aggression and its horrid impact on society, women’s rights, women’s lib., or feminism. And as always black history is a branch of American history which should be integrated into American history in general, as all American peoples’ histories are of equal importance… we must embrace even the ugliest of truths if we wish to move forward as a united people.
— Nick Martin, QA

The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights
Russell Freedman
Marian Anderson gained international fame for her awe-inspiring contralto voice throughout Europe, sang for kings and queens, but returned to her home in America and was denied entrance to the Constitutional Hall because she was “colored”.  Her appearance on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial before a crowd of 75,000 people of all races is a moment in history that should NEVER be forgotten.  This exemplifies that beauty (in all its forms) knows no race or cultural limitations.  Many of our youth do not even know who Marion Anderson was, her story should be brought to light.
—Barbara G. Barrett, Scanning Supervisor

So what’s your recommended reading for Black History Month? Let us know in the comments, and we’ll round up the best comments from here, Facebook, and Twitter, and post them a few days from now here on the blog.

9 Comments » | Tagged Book Lists, Black History Month