Research Guides: African American Studies Research Guide: Literature, Arts &amp; Humanities

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Social Interest

Natural Hair and Civil Rights
This JSTOR Daily essay lists a collection of resources and provides a history of the politics of natural hair from the 1700s to the present day.
Left of Black: Black Barbershop
Throughout United States history, barbershops have served both as a gathering place and as a tool of economic development for Black communities. Left of Black guest Dr. Quincy Mills discusses the ways that Black barbers’ roles within communities have changed over the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Cutting along the Color Line by Quincy T. Mills
ISBN: 9780812208658
Publication Date: 2013-10-09
Through several generations of barbers, Mills examines the transition from slavery to freedom in the nineteenth century, the early twentieth-century expansion of black consumerism, and the challenges of professionalization, licensing laws, and competition from white barbers. He finds that the profession played a significant though complicated role in twentieth-century racial politics: while the services of shaving and grooming were instrumental in the creation of socially acceptable black masculinity, barbering permitted the financial independence to maintain public spaces that fostered civil rights politics. This sweeping, engaging history of an iconic cultural establishment shows that black entrepreneurship was intimately linked to the struggle for equality.

Film

Black Hollywood Education and Resource Center (BHERC)
BHERC's stated mission is to "advocate, educate, research, develop, and preserve the history, and the future, of blacks in the film and television industries".
Black Women Directors digital library
This resource provides a growing list of Black women and non-binary filmmakers from across the globe.

Art

Art: Library Deco
An online African American digital art library, archiving the visual experience of art, literature, and history through the eyes of artists and institutions in the United States and abroad.
While I Yet Live
This short documentary explores quilting in an isolated African American community.

Literature

For a range of books and ebooks, do a Subject Search in the Catalog for

American Literature African American Authors
African American Authors American Literature
African American Authors American Poetry
African American Literary Criticism American
Harlem Renaissance
And many, many more authors and poets

Recent Research in African American Literature:

Black Cultural Production after Civil Rights by Patterson, Robert J.
Call Number: e-book
Publication Date: 2019
Evidence of Being : the Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence by Bost, Darius
Call Number: e-book
Publication Date: 2019
Bodyminds Reimagined by Sami Schalk
Call Number: PS153.N5 S33 2018
ISBN: 9780822370734
Publication Date: 2018
In Bodyminds Reimagined Sami Schalk traces how black women's speculative fiction complicates the understanding of bodyminds--the intertwinement of the mental and the physical--in the context of race, gender, and (dis)ability. Bridging black feminist theory with disability studies, Schalk demonstrates that this genre's political potential lies in the authors' creation of bodyminds that transcend reality's limitations.

We Need Diverse Books
We Need Diverse Books is a non-profit instrumental in growing the movement to have more equitable and diverse literature for children and young adults.
A Conversation with James Baldwin
A WGBH Boston interview with James Baldwin in its entirety from 1963. See the American Archive of Public Broadcasting database for more materials by and about James Baldwin.

Music

Breaking Bread, Breaking Beats by The CERCL Writing Collective
ISBN: 9781451489491
Publication Date: 2014-10-01
What is hip-hop, and how does it impact the Black Church? How do Black Churches think about hip-hop? How does it integrate hip-hop? How do these different, yet deeply interrelated communities think about the key topics of modern life--be it gender, sex, race, or globalization? These questions and more are the concern of the CERCL Writing Collective, under the mentorship of Anthony Pinn. In this innovative project, ten individuals write as one voice to illuminate the ways that hip-hop and the Black Church agree, disagree, and inform each other on key topics.
The Hip Hop and Religion Reader by Monica R. Miller (Editor); Anthony B. Pinn (Editor)
Call Number: BL 2525.H56 2015
ISBN: 9780415741002
Publication Date: 2014-11-26
Edited by two recognized scholars of African-American religion and culture, this reader, the first of its kind, provides the essential texts for an important and emerging field of study - religion and hip hop. Until now, the discipline of religious studies lacked a consistent and coherent text that highlights the developing work at the intersections of hip hop, religion and theology.
The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back by Andreana Clay
Call Number: HQ796 .C5943 2012
ISBN: 9780814717165
Publication Date: 2012
From youth violence, to the impact of high stakes educational testing, to editorial hand wringing over the moral failures of hip-hop culture, young people of color are often portrayed as gang affiliated, "troubled," and ultimately, dangerous. The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back examines how youth activism has emerged to address the persistent inequalities that affect urban youth of color. Andreana Clay provides a detailed account of the strategies that youth activists use to frame their social justice agendas and organize in their local communities.
Making Beats by Joseph G. Schloss
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 9780819574824
Publication Date: 2014
Based on ten years of research among hip-hop producers, Making Beats was the first work of scholarship to explore the goals, methods, and values of a surprisingly insular community. Focusing on a variety of subjects--from hip-hop artists' pedagogical methods to the Afrodiasporic roots of the sampling process to the social significance of "digging" for rare records--Joseph G. Schloss examines the way hip-hop artists have managed to create a form of expression that reflects their creative aspirations, moral beliefs, political values, and cultural realities.
The Cambridge Companion to Blues and Gospel Music by Allan Moore (Editor); Jonathan Cross (Contribution by)
Call Number: ML3521.C36 2002
ISBN: 0521806356
Publication Date: 2003
From Robert Johnson to Aretha Franklin, Mahalia Jackson to John Lee Hooker, blues and gospel artists figure heavily in the mythology of twentieth-century culture.
Mahalia Jackson and the Black gospel field by Burford, Mark
Call Number: e-book
Publication Date: 2018
Nothing but Love in God's Water v. 1 and v. 2 by Darden, Robert
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 9780271080147
Volume I. Black sacred music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement -- Volume 2: Black Sacred Music from the Sit-Ins to Resurrection City

The first of two volumes chronicling the history and role of music in the African-American experience. Explains the historical significance of song and illustrates how music influenced the Civil Rights Movement.
May We Forever Stand by Imani Perry
Call Number: e-book
ISBN: 9781469638614
Publication Date: 2018
The twin acts of singing and fighting for freedom have been inseparable in African American history. May We Forever Stand tells an essential part of that story. With lyrics penned by James Weldon Johnson and music composed by his brother Rosamond, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" was embraced almost immediately as an anthem that captured the story and the aspirations of black Americans. Since the song's creation, it has been adopted by the NAACP and performed by countless artists in times of both crisis and celebration, cementing its place in African American life up through the present day.

African American Music Reference This link opens in a new window
Coverage of blues, jazz, spirituals, civil rights songs, slave songs, minstrelsy, rhythm and blues, gospel, and other forms of black American musical expression through 1970.
Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries This link opens in a new window
Smithsonian Global Sound is a virtual encyclopedia of the world's musical and aural traditions. The collection provides access to online resources that support the creation, continuity, and preservation of diverse musical forms.It includes the published recordings owned by the non-profit Smithsonian Folkways Recordings label and the archival audio collections of the legendary Folkways Records, Cook, Dyer-Bennet, Fast Folk, Monitor, Paredon and other labels. It also includes music recorded around the African continent by Dr. Hugh Tracey for the International Library of African Music (ILAM) at Rhodes University as well as material collected by recordists on the South Asian subcontinent from the Archive Research Centre for Ethnomusicology (ARCE), sponsored by the American Institute for Indian Studies.

Fisk Jubilee Singers Documentary
Interviews from an American Experience documentary on the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a group made up primarily of former slaves who toured the US and were known for their renditions of spirituals.
Charm Warren-Celestine Interview
This 2009 oral history provides an account of a family's Wade Park record stores as well as the music venues around Cleveland.
Cleveland Jazz History
An Open Access book on the history of jazz in Cleveland made available through Cleveland State University and the Cleveland Memory Project.
George Hendricks Interview
In this 2009 interview, Hendricks discusses his life as an R&B Musician in Cleveland and his experiences with racism in the city and in the South. He reflects further on the development of music and the life of musicians since the 1960s.
Grace Lee Mims Interview
In this 2014 oral history, Mims shares her recollections of being a University Circle Music Settlement teacher with a passion for spirituals and jazz. She also reflects on the importance of black history as the former librarian of Glenville High School.
John Tate Interview
In this 2009 interview, Tate shares recollections of the role of rock and roll and R&B music while growing up in Youngstown, OH. He likewise speaks about racism in the United States and the effect music can have on society.
The Smithsonian: The Blues
This site contains art, photographs, concert posters, and other ephemera related to the blues as well as links to blues recordings.